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THE BURDEN BEARER 



The Burden bearer 



AN EPIC OF LINCOLN 



BY 

FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS 




PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



This edition of "The Burden Bearer" is limited to 
Three Hundred copies, of which this is 



No. 



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LIBRAKY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 16 1908 

. Copyri^ni Entry _ 
CLASS OL Mc. No. 



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Copyright, 1908, by 
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
Published November, igo8 



All rights reserved 
Printed in U. S. A. 



TO MY WIFE 






BOOK FIRST 



THE BURDEN BEARER 



BOOK FIRST 



Of sturdy English stock the Linkhorns came, 

People of Norfolk, seeking in the new 

For what the old denied, — a human right 

To labor and to worship in God's world 

Untrammeled save by conscience and the fear 
Of one sole Maker. 

So John Linkhorn came 

To plant his crops in Pennsylvania soil 

And gather fruit beneath Virginia sun; 

And after him came Abraham in turn. 

Migrating to Kentucky's distant fields; 

And after Abraham, Thomas, — he whose ways 

Were never thrifty, though his heart was set 



To cozen fortune whose averted face 
Shone never on him. Slow of gait was he, 
Stoop-shouldered, pausing ever for a jest, 
Hard-handed, capable of labor, nor 
Striving to shun it when it came his way. 
Though scarce alert to seek it out. 

His friends, — 
And he had many, — called him Shiftless Tom, — 
Tom Lincoln, who could make a joint at need 
And do such carpentry as few could match, 
Yet all unlettered. Patient at his bench 
Within the shop of Joseph Hanks he wrought, 
And saw the months glide into years and all 
The years to bootless issues. Yet a web 
Was being spun about his life to lead 
To undreamed destinies. For Tom saw oft 
His gentle cousin, daughter of the man 
Who paid him his scant wage. And Nancy's eyes, 
Resting at first complacent on the gaunt 
And stooping form at Joseph Hanks's bench, 
Little by little took a softer light 
And conjured up strange images whereof 

13 



They two became a portion. And at last 
He spoke, all awkwardly and ill at ease, 
Fashioning his untaught phrase to tell his love,- 
Unlettered, rough, yet eloquent. And she 
Quite understood and loved him that he failed,- 
Quite took into her heart his futile trial 
To make his plea a poesy; and so 
She gave her promise to become his wife. 

Time's wheel turns slowly, but at last the day 
Set for the marriage came, and Jesse Head, 
Exhorter, preacher, and the friend of both, 
With ceremony due made these two one 
In eyes of God and man. 

And Nancy faced 
The stern reality of coming trials 
With faith which knew no faltering. 

Sweet was she 
In all the winning ways of womanhood, 
Too timid haply for the turbulent stress 
Of stern and rugged days. Within her veins 
The blood of those who once serenely dwelt 

13 



In English Malmsbury flowed inviolate, 
And something of the mystic Stonehenge hung 
About her presence. Soft and vagrant winds 
Whispered their earliest carols to the child 
Who knew no struggle till a ruthless world 
Startled her sense and dashed her striving life 
Against the hardships of the pioneer. 

Through tears that told the pain of parting shone 
The light of girlish eyes, and from her gaze 
Faded Virginia hills, as in her mind 
A vision of the far Kentucky rose. 
And soon the perils of the journey came, 
The Wilderness Road with all its hidden fears. 
The bruit of savage Indians and at night 
The iterant cry of wolf and wildcat, raised 
As though to stem the Western flowing stream 
Of active life, grown milder at the hearth 
Of human kindliness. Thus did she come 
To live and learn and to each daily task 
To bring her willing effort. Thus her face 
Took on the look of patience, and her eyes 

14 



Turned serious, even as our fancy paints 

The eyes of Mary when the angel came 

To make annunciation. For mayhap 

A prescience whispered to the guileless one: 

"The day shall come when thou shalt bear a man 

To carry high the torch of liberty." 

How evermore inscrutable is fate! 

How evermore implacable the scales 

That weigh life's happenings! A timid bride 

Came Nancy to the cabin of the man 

Whom she had wedded, unafraid yet frail, — 

Alas! too frail, to cope with those hard days 

Which now became her lot. 

For Tom had made 
A hut of rough-hewn logs, with earth for floor, 
Windowless, bare, and open to the blast. 
And here he brought the wife whose daily toil. 
Faithfully given, of recompense had naught 
Save scanty food and clothing, and the leave 
For brief respite in weary slumber. Here 
Was born the little Sarah, all too soon 
To droop and seek again the kindly earth, 

IS 



Leaving the fragrant memory of her smile. 
Then, in the discontent which often breeds 
A hope of future betterment, these two, — 
The shiftless pioneer and his fading wife, — 
Moved onward to a little settlement; 
Men named it Buffalo, on Nolan Creek, 
Meandering through the blue Kentucky fields. 
Close by the cabin bubbled one clear spring, 
In cool seclusion, from beneath a rock 
That kept it ever shadowed; so they named 
The new place Rock Spring Farm. 

And ere a year 
Had seen the little family settled there, 
A mystery seemed to brood upon the house; 
And on a day God called a soul to life, 
And Abraham Lincoln lived. 



II 



Haply the dawns 
That press their wan cheeks on the uncumbered hills, 
Nor fret upon the angled works of men, 

i6 



Bring yet a finer essence to new day 
And bathe the spirit in a rarer joy 
Than those who dwell in towns have dreamed upon. 
So loving Nature's compensations keep 
Her scales at balance, and for us who seek 
To see in retrospect those rugged days 
In the gaunt wilderness, there is strange joy 
To think upon the vigor and the life 
Which from the first imbued that infant form, 
And through the tender veins of him whose fate 
Enwrapt America, poured vital strength 
To build at last the stature of a man. 
Patient the mother was, as true the wife. 
The first rude learning which to Thomas came 
He gained from Nancy's hands. So, too, the child, 
Turning from infancy at the mother's knee. 
Was taught to read from the scant printed page. 
And gathered lore of holy men of old, 
Ever more thoughtful with the growing years. 
Of schooling nothing worthy of the name. 
Of preaching little, save when some lean man 
Came hungry on his circuit through the wilds, 

17 



Pronouncing with thin hps the Hving word 
And in grim mien and manner setting forth 
The stern necessity of struggle here 
Or misery hereafter. 'Twas as though 
Fate hung a hopeless veil before the child, 
Who evermore sought shelter in himself, 
And as he learned to work, learned also well 
To hoard the hours for study. Then there came 
The move to Knob Creek, and again the change 
To friendlier soil in far and fallow fields 
Wrung by hard toil from Indiana's huge 
And overshadowing forests. Gentryville 
Became the new abode, forlorn and bare. 
A cabin rough-hewn, into whose rude logs 
Had bit the hatchet of that seven-year boy. 
Laboring each day beside his father, reared 
Its inhospitable unlovely shape, — 
Haply a shelter but no whit a home; 
And here each evening closed a day of toil. 
Ah, who that dwells in curtained ease can know 
The stress of those stern pioneers whose hands 
Wrought out the miracle of a Nation's growth? 



Who, fashioned in the large luxurious mold 
Of this our day's prosperity, may dream 
How Nature's face a century ago 
Wore frowns where now she smiles? 

Hard, hard the times, 
And grim the struggle for existence waged 
In those far settlements, those outer posts 
Where Thomas Lincoln and his fading wife 
Wrung a bare living from the grudging soil. 
Meagre their fare and their utensils few, 
Their raiment scarce above the garments made 
By silent squaws in the red Indians' tents; 
And if perchance the mother's patient hands 
Wrought homespun clothing, 'twas for Sunday wear, 
Above the daily uses of the farm. 
So Abraham, the child of such hard days, 
Grew into youthful stature, garnering strength. 
At night he sought the fitful glare of logs 
Burning upon the hearth to con the lore 
Of Thomas Lincoln's Bible, or to find 
In Bunyan's allegory food for dreams. 
The Life of Washington, sl precious part 

19 



Of the slim stock of books, was evermore 

An inspiration and an upward call 

To a soul bent on duty. Nor the least 

Of these prized helps to gropings of the mind 

Was that loved book of human tinctured rimes, 

The poems of Robert Burns. So evermore 

The earnest boy, after the hours of toil, 

Fed his young mind and built his seeking soul; 

And so the years sped till there came a night 

When Nancy Lincoln reached the end of care, 

And, folding her thin hands across her breast. 

Whispered a blessing in her husband's ear, 

Looked with a mother's lovelight in her eyes 

On little Sarah and on Abraham, 

And, with a sigh, passed out into the light. 



Ill 



How doubly solemn is death's whisper heard 
Through the green aisles, the lonesome sacristies. 
Of the primeval forest! Rude and plain 
The burial of Nancy, with no word, 



No sentence spoken, and no voice upraised 

In solace or in song. And Abraham grieved 

And brooded long on such a sore neglect. 

Till, hearing that one David Elkin rode 

To nearby settlements, — a man of God, 

Itinerant preacher and exhorter he, — 

He wrote beseeching that some service meet 

Be rendered at his mother's humble grave; 

And David traveled o'er the weary miles 

On horseback to the cabin, and from far 

About the country silent neighbors came, 

And gathered at the grave, now grown with grass, 

Beneath a stately sycamore; and there 

A sermon preached, a hymn sung and a prayer 

Hallowed the ground where Nancy Lincoln slept. 

Less prompt the foot of toil to meet each day 
The daily strife, when at the heart there tugs 
The sorrow of a parting. Yet the task 
Waits not upon the pleasure of the man, 
And so the father and the son toiled on. 
And little Sarah childishly essayed 

21 



A woman's labors. Abraham, between 

The hours of heavy work upon the farm, 

Sought how to add to their too scanty means, 

Doing such service as he might, perchance 

SpHtting the rails for a far neighbor's fence 

Or ferrying some traveler o'er the stream. 

Content with what he got, the while he gave 

A conscientious measure for his wage. 

The quiet evenings were in study spent; 

The boy, intent on education, strove 

To garner fruitage from that arid soil, 

And prospered so that soon the neighbors said 

He had become the oracle of law. 

At Jones's store the Solons of the place 

Discussed the politics of State and town 

And wrestled with the problems which their lives 

Made very real and earnest. When the court 

At Boonville held its session, Abraham came, 

Listening with admiration to the pleas, — 

Returning to his cabin then to dream. 

Through the long silence of the sombre nights. 

Of legal tilts and tourneys and the joy 



Of swaying men by brilliancy of mind 

And all the force of logic. But at home 

There was scant comfort. Son and father felt 

The need of all the thousand ministries 

Of woman's hand. Neglected were the chores 

Of the poor household, rusted and ill-kept 

The homely vessels of the kitchen shelf, 

Unmended the mean clothing. 'Twas perchance 

Rather necessity than sentiment 

Which spurred the elder Lincoln to make choice 

Of Sarah Johnson as a second mate; 

Yet was the choice most happy, for she proved 

As noble as affectionate, as wise 

As she was tender. And her stepson grew 

All soon to love her from a heart as true 

And crystalline as Nature. 

When again 
The struggling family in fair Illinois 
Sought an amended fortune, she who brought 
Her little store of household goods to fill 
The ever pressing needments, carried too 

■23, 



The sunshine of her soul to that far home 

To soften every hardship. Abraham now 

Feehng the hour had struck that he should seek 

To make his own place in a wider world, 

Engaged with Denton Offutt to bring down 

A flatboat to New Orleans, loaded deep 

With such provision as should find a sale 

In that great mart. 'Twas there his quick eyes found 

The many avenues to giant trade; 

'Twas there his nature turned in sudden shock 

To see the flesh and blood of men bid off 

Like chattels at an auction. With what mad 

Grief and wild indignation did he cry: 

"By God! if ever in the days to come 

I have the chance to strike so vile a trade, 

I shall strike hard !" 

Ah, wondrous prophecy! 
Sublime forecast of a sublime event. 
To give our wisdom pause! 

The country store 
At primitive New Salem scarce could give 
The inspiration for a destiny 

24 



So great as Lincoln dreamed. Yet mid the stress 

Of that rude Hfe he found the dreamer's hour 

To fashion visions in his spacious mind. 

Then came the Black Hawk war with quick alarm 

To summon men to action, and he went 

Undaunted by the meagreness of means, 

A poor equipment of a frontier town. 

With what strange interest does our thought revert 

To that rough camp on the Rock River's banks, — 

A camp which unto us of later days 

Seems history's microcosm; for its lines 

Enclosed, in comradeship of soldiers' lives, 

Zachary Taylor, Robert Anderson, 

Immortal Lincoln and — a name less blest — 

Jefferson Davis; mounted rangers all, 

And all as brave as hardy. When again 

A respite came from Indian alarms, 

The many-sided man put by his arms 

And, as postmaster of his little town, 

Gave honest labor for a meagre wage. 



25 



IV 



Anne Rutledge! What a perfume seems to haunt 
The syllables of that mellifluous name! 
Imagination dwells upon her face, 
And fancy wreathes her form in symmetry. 
Slowly both face and form became a part 
Of each day's dreaming of the earnest youth, 
And Abraham Lincoln knew the deepest love 
That ever in his heart made melody. 
At night he glimpsed her eyes among the stars, 
And in the twilights he repeated soft 
The verses of a song which seemed to hold 
The essence of her being. But too soon 
Fate passed a subtle hand across her brows, 
And she was fallen on sleep ere yet the joy 
Of love had reached its ripening. 

Lincoln knew 
Alone his bitterness, nor made loud moan; 
But those about him saw a shadow creep 
In darker emphasis to mark new lines 
And write its message on that virile face; 

26 



And ever after in the deep-set eyes 

Dwelt the strange pathos of an untold pain, — 

The mist of unshed tears. 

To the small home 
Had come the stealthy tread of Death to claim 
The cherished form of Sarah, and once more 
Father and son looked on a new-made grave 
Beneath the whispering trees. 

And Abraham wrought 
With still redoubled vigor at his tasks. 
Haply with hope to dull the edge of grief 
Upon the unchanging round of daily toil. 
Surveyor was he, boatman, rail-splitter. 
Builder of rough-hewn cabins. In the woods 
A wielder of the axe, and in the fields 
A tiller of the soil. Yet all the while 
He delved amid the precedents of law, 
Studied the commentaries, — the debates ; 
Not seldom brought the logic of his wit 
To bear upon the issues of some feud 
Among his neighbors of that countryside, 
Till people came to him for argument, 

27 



And afterwards for justice, and the folk, 

Finding him ever jealous of the right, 

And all unbending to mere policy, 

Bowed to his will, and called him "Honest Abe," 

Nor questioned his decisions. 

So the man 
Became the politician in a sense 
Worthy of all approval, and appealed 
To fellow citizens for proof of faith 
In his staunch loyalty; and at the polls 
They showed their faith, and sent him to the halls 
Of legislation at Vandalia. 
So, in the early manhood of a life 
Rooted in rugged nature, and upbuilt 
Amid the strenuous ways and days of toil, 
Came Abraham Lincoln to the open door 
Of statesmanship. And we who, looking back 
Down the perspective of the vanished years, 
May mark the epochs of a great career, 
Are conscious of an exultation born 
Of knowledge that within that open door 
Stood the sublimest fruitage of the time, 
To adorn the annals of America. 

28 



V 



Honor that oft doth seem too coy to list 
The lofty wooing of a noble mind! 
Fame whose blown hair and sun-illumined eyes 
Not always bring their glory to the dreams 
Of worthiest seekers; ye are hovering near, 
To touch with eloquence a lagging pen 
And fling new radiance o'er the historic page. 
A new career hath opened to the man 
Whose mind accepted destiny the while 
His hand wrought out his own. 

His steady eyes 
Had fixt their questioning purpose on the words 
Of prophecy and promise, — had indrawn 
The spiritual essence of the sacred text. 
And winnowed meanings, symbolisms, truth, 
From the large utterance of inspired lips. 
Within the ample storehouse of his mind 
Were garnered phrases of an import rich 
In comfort to the soul, and through his heart 
The melody of love, vibrating, kept 

29 



Its unabated sway. From Avon's source 

Of wit and wisdom flowed the exhaustless stream 

Of wide humanity, touched by the hand 

Of art inimitable, and upon its breast 

Floated rich argosies, which the seeking mind 

Of Lincoln seized and fed upon, and throve. 

So grafting beauty on the stock of strength. 

That perfect manhood should at last bloom forth, 

Life's ultimate fruit and flower. His studious ways 

Held him aloof from many a social scene, 

Yet left him time for civic duties, deemed 

The prime commands, laid on an honest soul. 

From Blackstone, Kent, the elementary law 

Was slowly made his portion. Physics soon 

Became his study. Manly, gentle, true, 

He grew to be the master of such speech 

As made him Nature's orator. His style. 

Concise and clear, simple, and more than all 

Marked with the Anglo-Saxon nervous force 

Which makes a sentence vital and a phrase 

Undying. 



30 



Now there came a further call 
To serve his State in legislative halls, 
First at Vandalia, then in later days 
At Springfield, whither the gaunt giant rode 
On a poor borrowed horse, and owning naught 
But saddle-bags, three law books and such clothes 
As poverty might claim. 

His good friend Speed 
Was waiting, and to him the traveler came 
Asking the cost of lodging, and, when told, 
Turning in sad and melancholy plight. 
Saying: "I have not wherewithal to pay, 
But if you'll let me share your room, I'll make 
My credit good by Christmas." So the two 
Lived in the humble quarters, and the town. 
From that time forward till the crowning year 
Which summoned Lincoln to his high estate, 
Became a patriot's home. 

Now did the law 
Absorb his every thought; the Federal courts 
Drew to themselves the talent of the State, 
Which, sparsely settled with a hardy race, 

31 



Yet furnished matter for continual feud 

At bench and bar. The court-house, oft of logs 

Though sometimes framed and boarded, bore small 

trace 
Of the robed majesty whence precedents 
And legal cues were drawn. The judge was placed 
Upon a platform of unsightly boards. 
Raised to lend dignity where oft, alas ! 
No dignity abode; and at his side 
The clerks, on comfortless imstable stools; 
And on the benches, further down the room, 
The patient jury. It were hard to tell 
Why, in the rude and restless days which then 
Filled out the passing year, the people found 
So great attraction in the court-house, yet 
It seemed the Mecca for all seeking minds 
To journey to, and, having found, to keep. 
Fitted to diverse needs, it held the place 
Of lecture and of theatre, or the scenes 
Of nightly revelry which Eastern taste 
Turned to for respite from a world of work. 
Riding the circuit had its hardships then, 

32 



Yet knew its compensations. Oft, perchance, 
Adventure seasoned travel, and the men 
Who rode together, making Hght the way 
With joke and sally, fording swollen streams, 
And sleeping in mean quarters, met in fierce 
And wordy opposition at the court, 
Intent to snatch, each for his client, all 
That might be got by pleading, or the wit 
To make a jury laugh. 

Such men were they 
Who, humble then, were giants when there came 
The stress and strain of war. The names stand large 
On history's page. Logan, the partner, friend 
And counsellor of Lincoln. Douglas, he 
Whose burning eloquence was yet to thrill 
A Nation and touch wide the fount of tears, — 
He whose supreme invective was to meet 
The solid sense and humor of that man 
Who conquered through simplicity. Bissell, 
Stuart and Baker, Trumbull, Browning, all 
Intent to carve out fortune, though the world 
Stood with averted face. Now the campaign 

33 



Which carried the first Harrison to fame, — 

"Log cabin" hero first, then President, — 

Broke into wordy fury, and the Whigs 

Knew no more vaHant champion than he 

Who spoke but by conviction, and so held 

Respect of enemy as love of friend. 

But not alone did politics enthrall 

Or civic duty bind him. For there came 

From Lexington to Springfield Mary Todd, 

Young, witty, ever ardent and withal 

Disposed to arrogance in claiming suit 

Of many brilliant suitors, and to her 

Lincoln made court; and soon the vixen Chance 

Threw in the way of both the hot-blood youth 

Of James Shields, who found grievance in a jest, — 

A paper satire born of Mary's pen, — 

And made demand for satisfaction. So 

Lincoln, whose chivalry was of the sort 

Which acts nor mouths its presence, stepped before 

Her anonymity, and bore the blame. 

Accepting challenge, and, while loath to fight, 

Refusing naught which honor might demand. 

34 



Then Shields was satisfied, and Mary felt 

Her first light liking ripening into love 

For one whose gaunt form held a knightly soul. 

Then, as October glories turned to brown, 

These two were plighted, nor postponed for long 

The benediction that should make them one. 

So, in the record of a great career. 

Another leaf was turned, — a new bright page 

Opened to meet the seeker's scrutiny, 

And teach the lesson of a life. 



VI 



What time 
The silver-tongued Demosthenes held Greece 
Struck into admiration and dumb awe, 
'Twas whispered that the gods had leaned to earth 
To pour their miracle of words upon 
The favored lips of men. And as the thrill 
Of cadenced eloquence enthralled the souls 
Of listening multitudes a deeper faith 
Became the human dower. 

35 



So to our land, — 
Dove-eyed America whose vizor rests 
Above her brow serene, — came now a voice 
To sway men to its will. Lincoln, inspired 
By loftiness of theme or righteous cause, 
Oft rose to heights sublime. Awkward at first, 
Ungainly in his mien, nor having care 
For outward accessories, when his soul 
Rose in the majesty of spiritual power 
To lift the banner of eternal right. 
He seemed the avatar of Justice, crowned 
With her undying bays. His attitude 
Unconsciously took on a classic mold; 
The lines of that lean figure fell apace 
Into the forms of beauty. From his eyes, — 
Those sentient pools wherein strange shadows lay, — 
Flashed forth the lightnings of a noble wrath, 
And flamed the indignation of a god. 
Invective from his agile tongue poured out 
A withering sarcasm, doubly barbed mayhap 
By the scarce uttered jest. The anecdote, — 
As coarse perchance as Nature's under side, 

36 



Yet like to Nature strong, unerring, true, — 
Served as the vestibule to temples wrought 
To ultimate perfection. To the jest 
So flavored with the salt of Attic wit 
That none could miss its purpose, oftentimes 
Succeeded, in one vital moment, words 
Fraught with the pathos of a woe concealed, — 
Touched with the minor music of men's tears. 
That tall shape, stooping as at first it rose, 
That homely visage, as at first it turned 
Full-featured on a half believing throng, 
Became transfigured until they who gazed 
Visioned a nimbus seeming to surround 
The dark dishevelled hair. 

Such was the man 
Who now brought to his country's Congress all 
A patriot's fervor. He had followed close 
Upon the heels of Stephen Douglas, he 
Who seemed designed of destiny to be 
Rival of Lincoln with such rivalry 
As brought undying fame to Illinois, 
Which both claimed as a mother. 

2>7 



In the House, 
As fellow members, Winthrop, Collamer, 
John Quincy Adams, Andrew Johnson, he 
Whom coming years brought to a doubtful fame, 
And Alexander Stephens, whose worse fate 
Foredoomed him to rebellion, sat and oft 
Met Lincoln in debate. Here, too, were Toombs, 
And fiery Rhett, and Cobb, who served his State 
Forgetful of his country. 

Douglas met, 
As rivals in the Senate, Benton, Dix, 
Keen Simon Cameron and Lewis Cass, 
Grave Daniel Webster, master orator. 
And Hale, and Crittenden, and John Calhoun, 
And (name replete with memoried regret) 
Jefferson Davis. 

Through long strenuous years 
Douglas, the leader of Democracy, 
Had faced on many a field of hot debate 
Lincoln, admitted chieftain of the Whigs; 
And now the Nation's legislative halls 
Echoed the rounded phrases of these two, — 

38 



One with a cultured eloquence o'erlaid 
With classic lore and fine historic sense; 
The other finding in deep human truth 
And apt similitude the stronger force 
To move the hearts of men. 

Dark seemed the days 
When war was forced upon a weaker State 
At bidding of an oligarchy, proud 
And arrogant withal. For slavery 
Had cast its baleful shadow o'er the land, 
And Mexico must at a nod be crushed 
That the fell monster might be further gorged, 
And serfdom mar the 'scutcheon of the free. 
Lincoln the patriot yielded nothing up 
Of principle. When once, at Ottawa, 
Douglas had charged him with disloyalty. 
He answered, with rare dignity and truth: 
"I was an old Whig, and when in the House 
My vote was sought in favor of the war, 
I did refuse to affirm its righteousness; 
But when my country was in arms, I gave 
My vote for grants of men and money, ay, 

39 



For prosecution of the bitter strife 
Even against a sister State. 'Twere well 
To note the clear distinction which subsists 
Between the wish to keep our country right, 
And base betrayal of her in the wrong." 
The war with Mexico brought issues up 
Too soon to lead to conflict. That small cloud, 
No larger than a man's hand, was to grow 
Into a darkling tempest. Even now, 
With Taylor president and party strife 
Stilled only at the voice of sordid gain, 
There came to ears not dulled by platitude 
The low portentous rumblings. 

To the man 
Who more than others had placed power within 
The hands of Taylor, now the offer came 
Of Oregon's executive control; 
But, with a wisdom haply not explained, 
The offer was refused. 'Twas fated so. 
And when, in after years, one said: "How good 
Was the kind fortune that so guided you!" 
Lincoln, with meditative mien, replied: 

40 



"Yes, you are right. Through all my varied life 
I still have been a fatalist. What is 
Must be, and Hamlet speaks the deeper truth: 
'There's a divinity that shapes our ends. 
Rough-hew them how we will!' 'Tis ever so." 
Then to the deeps of his far-searching eyes 
There came the dreamy look which they knew well 
Who best knew Lincoln, and a silence fell 
That seemed a prophecy. 

At Washington 
The stress of politics grew keener ever, 
And for domestic joys left scanty hours; 
Two boys had blest the marriage, and were now 
The brightest lights of home; for Robert kept 
Much of his father's likeness, and there dwelt 
Upon the brow of Edward some fair trace 
Of that which drew all eyes to Mary Todd, 
When from Kentucky's fields to Illinois 
She brought her coronet of womanhood. 



41 



BOOK SECOND 



BOOK SECOND 



America, thou whose euphonious name 
Is balsam to the ears of those whose love 
Is basic and undying; 
Thou whose broad fame 

Is founded in eternal justice, thou 
Upon whose brow the bays of peace are lying 
With laurel intertwined, — to thee above 
All other mistresses is due my vow 
Of loyalty and love. What then must be 

The sadness of the thought that thy young life 
Was marred by discord? That an envious cloud, 
Born of the lust of gain, should darken thee 
And bring at last the fratricidal strife, — 

The scarlet scourge of war? Thy pennons proud 
Were doomed to droop, even in the freshening 
breeze 

45 



Of thy fair morning tide, and ever through 
Thy matin-song of Hberty there went 

The mournful minor tones of bondage. When 
The settlers of Virginia, who knew 

The curse of slavery, besought the King 
To stop the infamy of trade in men. 
He did refuse and back a message sent 
Of stern rebuke. The fathers of the Nation — 

The men who later in their hands did seize 
Freedom's sweet fruit, — 

Regarded bondage as a vanishing 
And temporary evil. At the first 

And general congress of the Colonies 
Fair Philadelphia's legislative halls 
Heard Jefferson proclaim 

His bill of rights, holding a thing accurst 
The law which calls 
A man a chattel. Wide the proclamation 

Spread through the land, and all men heard the bruit 
Of abolition that should free the name 
Of fair America from infamy. 
Later the old Sun Tavern's storied walls 

46 



Saw the formation of the first 
Society of AboHtion, when 
The men of light and leading in the Nation 
Banded together in a common cause 

To make half-bound America all free, 
And tear from out the fundamental laws 
That earliest, worst 

And fatallest provision. Franklin then 
Became protagonist of freedom's cause, 

And Robert Morris, Patrick Henry, Rush, 
Immortal Washington and Hamilton, 

John Jay and Stiles of Yale, — 
The men whose names had won 
The veneration of their kind. 

The righteous path which Pennsylvania trod 
Was followed by New York and Maryland, 
Then by Connecticut, Virginia; 

Nor stayed New Jersey long without the pale, 
All recognizing where the way of God 
Departed from the King's way. 
From the hand 

Of the great-hearted, clear-eyed Jefferson, 

47 



There came the ordinance prohibiting 
All slavery throughout the unbounded West; 
'Twas not adopted; had it been, no State 
Curst with an institution so unblest 

Could have been added to the sisterhood. 
The patriot's impulse, as he stands to-day 
With retrospective gaze, is first to sigh: 

"Alas! that they who held the scales of fate 

Should so have erred." The sober second 
thought 
Brings forth the deeper wisdom, and we cry: 
"Necessity of law is ever fraught 
With issues which evade us. If we could 
We would not now undo that past defeat, 

Since through such darkness only could fate bring 
Our souls to nobler knowledge and make meet 
Our hearts for sacrifice." The canker sore 
Fixt in our country's vitals could no more 
Be soothed with balsams into quietude, 
But only by the rude 
And pitiless hand of unrelenting war 
Be reft away forever. Yet the strife 

48 



Was in the misty distance, and the love 
Of liberty was spreading. That vast field 
From which were carved five future sovereign 
States, 
Was made secure to freedom. Far above 
All mere expediency was set the star 

Towards which the soul forever gravitates, 
The beacon of all hope, loadstone of life. 

To whose strong power we yield 
As to a deity's bright avatar. 

From schools that graced New England's granite 
hills, 
From Pennsylvania's Quaker righteousness, 

From old Virginia's English rectitude. 
Flowed forth the stream of liberty which made 
The revolution real; the potent ills 
Which followed pauselessly in slavery's train. 

Debasing freemen as a contact lewd 
Debases virtue, — these could never be 

The vestibule of national content. 
The truth was recognized, yet soon arose 
The spectre of pecuniary gain; 

49 



The cotton gin an added impulse lent 
To the production of the staple; this 

Demanded negro labor; from the slave 
Wealth could be wrung, 
And power from wealth, as flows 

A river from its source; no theories grave 
Of abstract right born of the ethic sense, — 

No virtues sung 
By poets whose high artistic recompense 

Was their sufficient guerdon, could outweigh 
The call of selfishness; and so there grew 
An aristocracy of base intent 
Built on a baser crime. Nor was the North 
Less guilty than the South. Though keen at 
first 
To strike away the shackles, all too few 

Of those who championed freedom ventured forth 
Upon the sea of politics, to stay 
The flood which swept the South. 

Men of the North were everywhere immersed 
In things commercial, enterprises vast. 
Building of railways, opening of mines, 

so 



Great irrigation schemes to conquer drouth 

And lines of telegraph to conquer space. 
There was no time to fight for principle 

While yet ungarnered wealth 
Lay ready to the hand, and so there fell 
A shadow of indifference which cast 
Its pall upon the money-getting North; 
Cotton was king in Northern factories 

As in the Southern fields; a Nation's health 
Might suffer so that mill and mine gave forth 
Their golden harvestings to enterprise. 

Then did the face 
Of Justice darken with a frown, and lines 
Of sorrow lie upon her regal brow. 

A base alliance made between the greed 
Of Northern money-kings and Southern lords 
Of a sham aristocracy, arose 
To hold the Nation in its grip of steel 

And make the government a tool to feed 
Rapacity and pride. 

The Southern people, bred to politics. 
Grew arrogant and proud, as those who feel 

SI 



Superior power to organize and lead. 
Thus out of circumstance did fate endow 
The South with sure control. The weaker side 
Became the stronger. History affords 

No apter lesson. So the slave power grew 
To be the dominant factor, till there came 
The hand of destiny to clear anew 

The Country's forehead of its brand of shame. 



II 



Ironical the fate that in a land 

Sacred to freedom slavery should hold 
High court within the capital; yet this 
Insult was ours to bear. 
From the free soil of Philadelphia 

The Nation's seat, removed to Washington, 
Became the citadel of bondage. Bold 
And ever bolder did the serpent hiss 
As shrank the Nation, fearing to make stand 
Before its closing coils. From Georgia 
By cession came the land 

52 



Out of which two great States 
Should afterwards evolve. From friendly France 
Louisiana, purchased, brought her weight 
Of forty thousand slaves. 

From Spain a territory doomed by fate 
To human chains was bought, and Florida 
Added her quota further to enhance 
The power of Southern greed. 
Then at the Nation's gates 
Missouri knocked, insisting on the need 
Of that base institution which depraves 

The souls of those who wear 
Its galling fetters. With far-searching eyes 
Clay saw the opportunity to check 

The monster's progress Northward, and so drew 
The terms of the Missouri Compromise, 
Giving the state to bondage, but forever 

Prohibiting extension to the North. 
Vainly did Douglas prophesy that never 
Should the vext question like a ghost arise 

To plague the country. Yet more arrogant 
Grew the sham aristocracy, whose power 

S3 



Was based in that iniquity of law 

Which gave the master right to cast a vote 
Proportioned to the number of his slaves. 
Law never knew 

So strange a logic as the people saw 
Writ in the Constitution. Southern cant 

Was matched by Northern failure well to note 
That slaves were either men or property; 

If men, the franchise was their own by right; 
If property, no owner had the dower 
Of ballots based on wealth. 
The people closed their eyes and shunned the light 
Lest, when they came to see. 

The cancer which consumed the Nation's health 
Should grow into a conflict ending all. 
Yet are the scales of God forever true; 

No human judgments may His ends foretell; 
But they whose vision was the keenest knew 
The conflict now was irrepressible. 
The grasping spirit overreached itself, 

Making unrighteous war on Mexico; 
And California, seized for love of pelf, 

54 



Became the seed of liberty. For lo! 

A mighty call 

Went up against slave labor in that land 

Of golden promise, and though Wilmot failed 

In his "Proviso," Freedom took her stand 

For human liberty, and tyrants quailed 

Before the imminent storm. 

Now from ten States were delegations sent 

To Philadelphia. Thither Garrison, 

Phillips and Adams, Clay and Channing went, 

And Whittier, he whose placid muse had won 

The affection warm 

Of all his countrymen. A pact was made 

To free the country's 'scutcheon of its stain. 

And to exterminate the abhorrent trade 

In human flesh, which rendered worse than vain 

Our boasted liberty. 

Now party lines were drawn for deadlier strife. 

Men saw the coming storm with quickened 

breath, 

While in the balance the Republic's life. 

Shadowed beneath the brooding brows of death. 

Hung tremblingly. 

55 



Ill 



From out the turmoil and the deep unrest 

A figure now emerges, and a mind 
That Hke an Eastern storied palimpsest 
Is brilliant in perception overlaid 
With matchless eloquence, — a force refined 
In the white fires of passion, unafraid, 
Yet ever finding in diplomacy 
The safest exit from the politic snares 

That oft beset ambition. Such as he 
Spring into leadership and unawares 
Become their own dark Nemesis. 

The Senate's leaders, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, 
Had fallen into silence, and the walls 
Which once had echoed their euphonious calls 
To duty in the fields where honor is, 

Heard nevermore the music, all too soon 
Hushed in the quietude which often falls 
Before the tempest bursts. 

To them succeeded, in the early prime 
Of manhood, Stephen Arnold Douglas, he 

s6 



Who seemed the very flower of his time, — 
The idol of the young Democracy. 
And as the soldier thirsts 

For glory, so did Douglas thirst for fame, 
Finding in his misguided view, the way 
In truculent complaisance with that same 
Insatiate monster whose dark shadow lay 
Already o'er the country like a pall. 

So when came Kansas and Nebraska, seeking 

Their territorial rights, 
Douglas cast faith aside, and, boldly speaking 
In favor of a crime, sought to wipe all 

The laws that shielded liberty away. 
'Twas then that the Missouri Compromise, — 
A solemn obligation made between 

The friends of freedom and of slavery, — 
Was ended by repeal; 
'Twas then the light 

Went out in Liberty's high citadel. 
And sad America's beseeching eyes 
Gave up their dole of tears! 
On such a day 

57 



Rose Seward in the Senate, valiantly 
Proclaiming to the sense-enthralled throng: 
"The struggle which we now so keenly feel 

Is that which ever, through the aging years, 
Exists uncrushed between the right and wrong. 
You may as soon compel the heaving sea 
To stay his waves, or bid the fecund earth 

Quench her internal fires. 
As bid the human mind forget its birth, — 

The human heart cease craving liberty." 
Houston of Texas, too, refused to give 

His vote to break a solemn act of faith. 
And, pointing to the gilded eagle, cried: 
"Yon symbol proud above your head remains 

Shrouded in black, as it were now the wraith 
Of murdered justice. Our departed sires, 
Whose memories in our hearts forever live, 
Must from the higher realms deplore the chains 
We rivet on the free. 
So faith is broken, honor crucified." 

All, all in vain! The barriers were cast down 
That held the curse of slavery from domain 

58 



Over the North and West. 
Each Southern town 
Put on its gala dress. In Washington 
The officers of government wore smiles; 
Guns thundering from the capitol's green hill 
Proclaimed in salvos over listening miles 
The triumph of the slave power, — victory won 
At cost of rectitude; the powers of ill 
Wearing the victor's crown. 
Blue Lodges, formed throughout the exultant South, 
Sought to take quick possession, and extend 
To the new territory slavery's sway; 
While through the thoughtful North, from mouth 
to mouth, 
Was passed the word of warning, to defend 
Free soil from this pollution. Day by day 
The lines were closelier drawn. New England 
formed 
Emigrant Aid Societies, and soon 

Came hardy settlers, taking up the land 

For farming. While the foes of freedom 
stormed, 

59 



Its friends grew more determined that the boon 
Should not be lost; and so the fires were fanned 
To ever threatening flame. A man arose, — 
A man of conscience, yet with judgment bent 
By personal wrongs, — to lead the freemen on, 
John Brown of Ossawatomie; and those 
Who felt his purpose right assistance lent 
To aid its consummation. Robinson, 
Pomeroy and Lane, and many an earnest soul. 
Helped to build villages, make settlements. 
Erect schoolhouses ; while, with equal zeal, 
The fiery slaveholders sought control 

Of the wide land from which the law's defence 
Had been withdrawn through cowardly repeal. 
Such was the bitter struggle now at hand 
For Kansas. On the side of slavery 
Was all official influence; 

The government of the United States 
Was in the grasp of foemen to its weal. 

From end to end of Liberty's own land 
The friends of Liberty were made to feel 
The bitter sense 

60 



Of base betrayal, and as honor hates 
The stigma of surrender to a He, 

So in the conscience of the serious North 
Sank ever deeper the compelHng thought 
That Liberty and Slavery henceforth 
Could not dwell side by side, — could not be brought 
Into the harmony for which those sigh 
Who love their native land. 



IV 



Now came the breaking down of party lines; 
Old issues disappeared, and on the new 
And vital questions men divided stood; 
Political allegiance, which confines 
The individual action when the view 

Is unobscured by stressful circumstance. 
Was cast aside. The overbearing mood 
Of the slave-holding South was bearing fruit; 
The Democratic party which so long 
Had been the citadel of bondage, now 

Was rent in twain. Men of conviction strong 
6i 



Against the right of property in slaves, 
Broke from the ranks, and, as though following suit, 
The old Whigs split, some seeking to endow 
With privilege of franchise only those 
Born of the native soil, while others held 
To broader views, though still insistently 

Demanding freedom for the man who craves 
As for the man who claims it. So there came 
A new alignment. Human liberty 
Became the slogan of a mighty host 
Who needed but a leader and a name, 

And at the appointed moment there arose 
In Illinois the leader and the name, — 

Abraham Lincoln, the Republican, 
Chosen of destiny to mold and weld 
The elements diverse 
Into the party that should come to be 

The standard bearer in a new crusade, — 
The force cohesive when the Nation's shame 
Should culminate, and human passion fan 
Hate's embers into war. 
The time of compromise was past; the curse 

62 



Which strangled a free people could no longer 

Be shut from sight, or be by falsehood made 
A seeming blessing. Lincoln, hitherto 
But little known beyond his State, came forth 
As freedom's champion. From near and far 
A sudden cry went thrilling through the land 
That here was one whose sturdy faith was stronger 
Than all the craven fears which made the North 
Bend to the Southern lords; 
No history affords 

A lesson more astounding. Douglas came, 
With futile argument to gloss his shame 
In forcing the repeal 
Of the Missouri Compromise. He brought 
The apt allusion, the well-rounded phrase, 
The eloquence and the persuasion bland 

Which, in the Senate, oft had carried through 
Measures the most unpromising. 

In rapt attention Lincoln listened, then 
Replied in utterance so deeply fraught 

With feeling and in logic so complete. 
That every auditor was made to feel 
63 



The inherent virtue of his cause. 
The State-house, crowded to its outer doors, 
Was still as death; 

A burst of wild applause 
Succeeded to the tension, while each breath 
Was held awaiting 

The final periods of a speech replete 
With beauty which outran perfunctory praise, 
And sense which forced conviction. Once 
again, 
When Douglas, at Peoria, sought to prove 

The worse the better, Lincoln, like the flood 
Which a pent torrent, liberated, pours 
Upon the unstable reeds. 

Tore from its roots the flimsy argument. 
Till Douglas, crushed, essayed at last to move 
His adversary to compassion. Thus 
Did Lincoln leap to National renown. 
Wise in the knowledge of his country's needs, 

Great in devotion to her cause, he stood 
A leader at the parting of the ways 

Where friendship and life's holiest ties were rent, 

64 



And, 'neath the shadow of an incubus, 

A smiHng land drooped in the direful frown 
Of those who plucked away her honored bays. 



V 



Fraud, slavery's best handmaid, now became 
The means to rivet Kansas in her chains; 
And at Lecompton, acting in the name 

Of a free people, brought about a sham 
And meagre constitution, fastening 
The blight of slavery upon the State. 

Then, in the righteous anger which disdains 
All compromise, the hardy settlers held 
Convention at Topeka, drafting there 

An instrument of freedom, wrought to weld 
Fair Kansas in the Union, North and West, 
Of commonwealths forever dedicate 
To liberty and law. 
The people saw. 
And seeing, welcomed the oncoming strife; 
Impending battle hurtled in the air; 

6s 



The crawling monster stood at last confest; 
And when the legislature was dispersed 
By force of arms, 
At order of a recreant President, 
All timorous alarms 

Gave place to a determination, first 
To conquer liberty, more dear than life, 
Nor ever rest content 

Till Kansas should be free. 
Yet was the goal far distant. That great court 
Which hitherto the world had deemed the 
august 
Tribunal of a sovereign people, fell 

To be the instrument of party need, — 
To bend to circumstance, and so abort 

A Nation's welfare, that a section's creed 
Should be writ in the fundamental law. 

The calm historian, standing where the dust 
And din of battle reach him not, can tell 

With faltering tongue the story of a case 
Become historic through the inherent flaw 
Within its reasoning: 

66 



Dred Scott, the negro slave, the merest thing 
Of sale and barter, now became 
The pivot about which the questions turned 
That should at last be wrought to settlement 
On bloody fields of war. Type of his race, 
He symbolized the shame 
Of a great Nation's highest court, and earned 
For Taney and his fellows that low place 
Which, in the judgment of posterity, 
Is silently assigned to those content 

To sell their birthright for rewards all base 
And sordid utterly. 
Nor satisfied to rend with ruthless hand 

The instrument which made the land half free, 
This cruel decision, taking its false stand 
Upon the right of local sovereignty. 
In one breath said that each community 
Should make its own decision to exclude 

Or to admit the slave, and in the next 
Proclaimed the right of him who held a slave 

To take him, as his very property, 
Into a State whose Constitution gave 

67 



That slave the right of human liberty. 
Then, further to becloud the question vext, 
These sordid Solons, seeking to obtrude 

Their unsought wisdom, — turning quite aside 

From what the case involved, boldly declared 
The law unconstitutional which fixt 

A boundary to the realm of slavery. 
So were self interest and false logic mixt 
That people guaranteed untrammeled choice, 
Found themselves fettered and without a voice 
In the most vital issue. They were free 
So long, and so long only, as they chose 

To keep themselves ensnared 
Within the meshes of the net which those 
Who hated liberty had opened wide 
To hold a land enslaved. 
So was the issue of States' Rights, — that twin 
Abortion born with slavery, — the spawn 

Of greed and treason, — thrust unduly forth. 
To force confusion while the people craved 
Peace and the opportunity to win 

From bounteous Nature her unstinted store 

68 



Of wealth diverse and splendid. Like the dawn 

Touching to life the sleeping fields, the North 
Had seen the hope of a free country grow 
Into a glorious promise. Now the light 

Seemed dying out forever. Nevermore 
Should laughing rivers, all unfettered, flow 
Into the boundless sea. In hope's despite 

The chains were being forged with stronger links, 
And from the rostrums of a sneering world 
Scorn mixt with pity o'er the sea was hurled 
At a Republic based upon a lie, — 
At Liberty with wrists in iron gyves, — 
At a great Nation builded on the claim 

That all men were born free and equal, yet 
Outraging every holiest natural tie, 
And placing in unsparing hands the lives 
Of fellow creatures, — ay, the right to maim 
And whip to silence, — ay, the right to set 
Firm lip to lip, and, like the storied Sphinx, 
To answer nothing to a people's plea 
And to a Nation's questioning! 

Alas! the deeper shame that, at the fount 

69 



Of government, should dwell the coward soul 

That bends to arrogance. The Nation's force 
Was ever wielded at the Southern nod, 
And ever quick to bring 

Confusion to the champions of free 
Unfettered toil. The Congress did not count 
The final cost of peace that gave control 

To men whose theory had become their God, — 
Whose conscience, seared and deadened to 
remorse, 
Now made the worse the better, — made sincere 

Their faith in that base institution, born 
In love of power and the human greed, 

Which seeks the fruitage of another's toil. 
Alas! that in the chair of Washington 
Was seated now a weakling, in whom fear 
Kept pace with indecision, — the mere foil 
And tool of stronger men, — target of scorn 
Of every patriot groaning to be freed 

From the intolerable bondage of a class 

Whose hands had seized the prize our fathers 
won, — 

70 



Whose pride, alas! 
Outran discretion, and whose final deed 

Let loose the dogs of fratricidal war. 



VI 



With what nice jointure, what unmatched design. 

Are wrought the works of Providence, to fill 
Each one its destined purpose! To combine 
All friends of human freedom, that the will 
To banish slavery might find the way, — 

This was the goal now set before the eyes 
Of earnest thinking men. The force that lay 
In Sumner's eloquence, in Seward's wise 
And witty epigram, and in the keen 

Philosophy of Phillips, Trumbull, Chase, 
Gave strength to those who, faltering between 
The love of peace and duty's call to face 
A conflict irrepressible, now turned 

For counsel to their leaders. Through the South 
Determination hardened into hate; 

Concessions, offered timidly, were spurned; 

71 



The administration, speaking by the mouth 
Of a weak President, had learned too late 
The lesson of a government's high call 

To enforce authority. Even Douglas saw 
The pride which ever goes before a fall 
Rearing its head too brazenly. The law 

Was being wrenched, and Congress bent the 
knee 
To dictatorial masters, who upheld 

The standard of a Southern chivalry 
Above the flag of freedom. 'Twas the hour 
For presentation of the issues. Now 

The people craved the truth, and Lincoln saw 
Letters of fire writ large along the sky, — 
Letters which spelled 

A word to thrill each patriot heart, and dower 
Each soul with courage. So when Douglas came 
To hold Chicago in the magic net 
Of his most specious logic, Lincoln met 
And answered him minutely, showing how 

The arguments were faulty, — where the flaw. 
And where the reasoning oft reached a lame 

72 



And impotent conclusion. Then a cry- 
Went up for more discussion. Bloomington 
Heard Douglas roll his splendid periods, 

And Springfield listened rapt to words that won 
The ringing plaudits of a thousand tongues. 
And Lincoln, sitting silent 'mid the throng. 
Was conscious of a spiritual voice which blent. 
Divinely human, like an undertone 

Beneath the soaring sound. No man among 
The listeners could guess the passion pent 
Within his bosom, like a tide that floods, 

But cannot burst, its boundaries. Quite alone 
He sat and pondered. Then, when evening came, 
Within the capitol, upon the same 

Platform which Douglas in the morning used, 

He spoke, and on the listening multitude 
There fell conviction and belief that fused 
All feelings into one. For Lincoln's words 

Were charged with faith which bears religion's 
stamp, 
And each position in his argument 

Was reinforced, and in its fulness stood 



Unanswerable. Truth, which ever girds 
The man who, in a time of stress, is sent 

By a kind Providence to bear the lamp 
Of knowledge to a people all confused, 
Wrapped in its folds this leader among men, 

Who came to rescue Liberty abused, 
And, with the eloquence of voice and pen. 
To rend his country's chains. 

Now followed joint discussion of the themes 
Of vital moment; first at Ottawa, 
Later at Freeport, Jonesborough ; again 
At Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton. Then 
An intellectual battle, which remains 

Unique in history's record, or the dreams 
Of high ambition, was fought valiantly. 
And from the fray 

Victor and vanquished bore a fame away 
All unforgotten of posterity. 

How vivid is the picture fancy draws 

Of this arena and the combat fought 
Of these contestants, pleading each a cause 

Dear to his heart, — each with a message fraught 

74 



With untold consequence, and both impelled 

By knowledge that America stood still, 
With forward bended head and breath withheld 
The while the struggle wavered. Stern of will 
And fixed of purpose, Douglas seemed to be 
The embodiment of large ambitions. Brows 
Broad and o'erarching like a canopy 
Above his eloquent eyes, — a wealth of hair, 

Dark in its purple deeps, — a mobile mouth, 
Molded a lost cause fitly to espouse, 

And on the battlements of blank Despair 

To plant Hope's banner. From the amber 
South 
He drew the honeyed eloquence that held 

His audience spellbound. From the sunburnt West 
A wafture of the prairies' breath compelled 
The senses to obedience. His deep chest 

Swelled with emotion, as his words bore forth 
The message of his brain. His short, stout 
frame 
Vibrated, and, as ever to the North 

The inerrant needle turns, so ever came 

75 



The argument of Douglas, at the last, 

To prove a theory which his mind held fast, 

And justify a name 
Dear to his friends: "The Little Giant." 

Strange 
The contrast which his adversary bore; 

Tall, lean, loose-jointed; with a gaze whose 
range 
Seemed wide as life's horizon, those deep eyes 
Gleamed with the lambent light, — the cryptic lore, — 
Of long forgotten days. No sophistries 

Were woven through the texture of his speech. 
But over every argument was flung 
The unsullied garment of simplicity 
Which still reveals the truth. 
The gift to reach 

The common conscience on his eloquent tongue 
Lay ever ready, while felicity 
In illustration drove his lessons home. 

Such were the giants wrestling for a prize 
Beyond the computation of a mind 

76 



Yoked to material aims. The compromise 

Which one suggested, and in terms defined, 
Was by the other deemed the weak device 
To soothe the cancerous growth which soon must come 
Even to the country's vitals. In such mood 
Did Lincoln, moved to seeming prophecy, 
Quiver upon the platform where he stood. 
And with the passion of conviction cry: 
"Sometimes I see the end of slavery; 
I feel the time is coming when the sun 

Shall shine no more, nor from the darkened sky 
Shall any rain fall, on a single one 
Of all God's creatures going forth each day 

To unrequited toil." 
How deep the inspiration who shall say? 

Son of our native soil! 
Was his alone the vision, — his the way 
To reach the appointed goal? 
We may not know but in all gratitude 
Be thankful that, within that temple rude. 
Dwelt Lincoln's crystal soul. 



"77 



BOOK THIRD 



BOOK THIRD 



How oft upon a breathless summer noon 

Falls the faint whisper of a coming storm, 

And, as the sun turns to the waiting West 

Where white cloud banks thrust up their shoulders high 

Into the glow of gold, a strange, long hush 

Follows the bustle of the breezes, still 

And ominous as fate, as though God held 

His breath a little, ere he uttered forth 

A word of high command. 

'Twas even so 
That everywhere, from those stone-bounded farms 
Still echoing to the guns of Bunker Hill, 
Even to the warm bayous, the thirsty sands 
Where Mississippi ends a long career, 
A silent menace in the oppressive air 
Seemed dolorously to hush the lips of men. 

8i 



Then, as the cleavage of opinion grew 

Ever defined more sharply, there was heard 

Another word in whispers iterant. 

More widely spoke than Slavery, such a word 

As brought strange joy to tyrant ears, and filled 

The souls of freedom's lovers with dismay, 

A word of fear, — Secession. 

Was it then 
In vain the fathers had made sacrifice 
To weld the colonies, that into one 
The many should be merged? That patriot blood, 
Poured out at Concord and at Lexington, 
To purchase liberty, had made more dear 
Our sacred Western soil? 

Alas! the call 
Of judgment, as of conscience, falls unheard 
Upon the ears of passion. Through the South 
The lightning of disunion rent its way; 
The cry went up of rule or ruin; they 
Who long had gripped the Nation like a vise, 
Would take no counsel of adversity. 
But, dreaming of an empire builded high 

82 



upon the fruitage of unrighteous toil, — 
Puffed with false notions of a finer skill 
In politics and statecraft, these hot sons 
Of a long-suffering mother sought to strike 
That patient mother down. With what deep sense 
Of anguish did the loyal North take heed 
Of hastening events! More sharply drew 
The lines of party. Now the eyes of men 
Turned, seeking leaders; and as slowly grows 
Out of the mist a vision, so there loomed 
The figure of a man upon the plains, — 
Tall, gaunt, untutored of the schools, yet touched 
With such a grace of Nature, such large mind. 
As might befit a later Moses, sent 
To lead a later people to their goal. 
Across the borders of wide Illinois 
Floated a name adown the Western breeze. 
Across Ohio, Pennsylvania, came, 
In uncouth syllables, like an uttered faith 
Half understood, reverberating calls, 
Repeating as though mystic meaning lay 
Amid its folds, the name of Lincoln. Soon 

83 



A whisper grew to volume of a cry; 
The teeming East, till now but half aroused, — 
Grown gross and all intent in garnering 
The golden harvest of its thrift, — held out 
Appealing hands towards that vast prairie land 
Whose sunburnt face wore youth's bright smile. 

There came 
The call for a deliverance, — for a man, — 
For one strong soul around whose constancy 
Might group opposing forces. To that call 
Answer was given; Abraham Lincoln came. 
And stood before the people of New York, 
Who went in curiosity to see 
This Western prodigy, this man of jokes, 
Stump speaker against Douglas; he best known 
For much coarse humor, and a pretty wit 
At repartee and sally. It was there 
That Bryant sat presiding. Greeley, too, 
Half hearted at the first, yet growing grave. 
As, one by one, the records of the past 
Were from the storehouse of that pregnant brain 
Brought forth to light the present. 



They who went 
To scoff, remained to pray. This Western boor, 
Rising to dignity, and swept along 
By the heroic urgence of his theme. 
Soon held his audience spellbound. 

He based all 
On that great charter of our liberties 
Which, holding all men free and equal, stood 
Our bulwark for the future. It were vain 
To speak of compromise while treason sank 
Its poisoned fangs and hissed its hideous name, — 
Vain to placate a people who had sought 
Excuse to rend the Nation, and pluck out 
From our bright flag its stars. 

"Let us have faith," 
He cried outstretching a prophetic hand, 
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and so 
Dare to do all our duty to the end, 
As we shall understand it." 

Struck to awe. 
The people of that cultured audience heard 
The solemn words of scholarly and rare 

85 



Wisdom pronounced by lips whose utterance 

Seemed guided by compelling power and touched 

With a celestial fire. A mighty change 

Was wrought within the hour. A single speech 

Swept Lincoln into leadership throughout 

The limits of a country now at last 

Awakened to its peril. Wide his fame 

Was carried through the North, the East, the West, 

And from a thousand thousand throats burst forth 

A cry of exultation that the hour 

Which brought the crisis also brought the man. 

The Party which in Illinois had raised 

The unblemished standard of free statehood, soon 

Spread mightily throughout the land, and he 

Became the chosen leader of its vast 

And ever growing ranks. 

And all the while 
Secession sentiment took deeper hold 
Throughout the turbulent South. On Breckinridge 
Fell the poor mantle of an erring cause, 
While Douglas, claiming faithfully to hold 
The scales of moderation as between 

86 



The advocates of sectional designs, 

Raised high the banner of his name, and fought 

A vaHant battle for ambition's goal. 

Lincoln, supremely conscious of the weight 

Of grave responsibility which soon 

Must bear upon the Country's President, 

Shrank from a nomination to that high 

And care-encumbered office; but the call. 

Now grown imperious, could no more be spurned. 

And so, with this fair crown of his desire 

Haply within his reach, he took the cross 

Which patriots proffered, and became the brave 

Unflinching standard-bearer of a Cause. 



II 



Now .destiny, that leans to no man's lure, 
Leads onward to the crucial test of strength. 
While a vast Nation, pausing in its task 
And daily occupation, shows the world 
A spectacle more grand than pageantry 
And all the pomps of war. From morn till eve 

87 



The fateful ballots fall; from morn till eve 
A mighty people waits with quickened breath 
The issue of a peaceful struggle fraught 
With war's grim possibilities. At last 
The end is reached. The country solemnly 
On Abraham Lincoln lays the accolade 
Of its supreme command. And he, bowed down 
With weighty sense of that great burden, lifts 
Eyes sanctified by tears towards Heaven, whose smile 
Seems shadowed by the clouds of Earth's despair. 
Yet now a gleam of hope o'er Northern skies 
Breaks to the glory of a sunburst. Through 
The nerves of patriot freemen thrills the fine 
Vibration of a coming action, filled 
With promise of deliverance, and at last 
Assertion of a manhood long betrayed. 
The breaking of the bonds of shameful fear. 
Nor at the North alone is the result 
With satisfaction hailed. The Southern men 
Who once made slavery their sole excuse 
For a long-lost allegiance, now come forth 
In colors honester, and wide proclaim 

88 



Their final goal disunion. They rejoice 
That the election of a free-soil man, — 
Choice of an "abolition President," — 
Should furnish specious reason for the step 
Long dreamed of and desired. 

And so begins 
The stress and struggle of a contest meant 
To pluck at last a righteous victory, 
In hate's despite, and so to bind thy brows, 
O Land of our affection, with new bays. 

Ah, proud fond mother, rended of thy sons; 
Ah, bleeding mother, whose mute wounds betray 
More eloquently than all spoken words 
Thine offspring's black ingratitude! What tongue 
Shall fashion thought to utterance, or bear 
To hearkening ages knowledge of the wrongs 
Which mark thy base betrayal? 
In the halls 
Reared for thy uses, stalks Conspiracy, 
And damned Treason slinks along those aisles 
Once trodden of patriot feet. Thine arches now 

89 



Resound with blatant threats, where once was heard 
The echoed eloquence of Henry Clay, 
Or Webster's organ tones. Buchanan sits, 
Palsied and puerile, in the seat made great 
By Washington and Jefferson, and all 
The sources of thy power are sapped away 
By traitors under cover of the dark. 
Within the Cabinet are men intent 
To compass thy undoing, — to disarm, 
And so make impotent thy battlements, 
And rive thee of thy strength. The ship of State 
Must be dismantled ere its flag be struck 
At bidding of the foe. A Memminger 
Boasts openly that, with a pliant tool 
Within the White House, all is easy now 
To crush the Federal government, and make 
All Lincoln's efforts futile. From the vaults 
Of a depleted treasury are drawn. 
And used improvidently, funds whose care 
Devolved on Howell Cobb. From each free State 
And from the Northern arsenals are sent 
Arms and munitions to the rebel South, 

90 



That so the nerves of war may be at hand 

To strike the power that made them. Floyd, alert 

To serve Secession, bears a brazen brow 

Beneath his crown of shame, and scatters wide 

The soldiers of the country to far posts 

And distant reservations; while the ships, 

Making at best a feeble navy, go. 

At order of a Toucy, well beyond 

The reach of sudden call. 

And all the while 
Each traitor, boasting of his "honor," draws, 
With promptitude punctilious, his pay; 
Each arch conspirator goes up and down 
Demanding mileage, salary and all 
The perquisites which a too generous land 
Gives to a ruthless horde. 

Ah, strange indeed 
The spectacle of government in hands 
Intent to overthrow it! Davis, Cobb, 
Toombs and their co-conspirators, each day 
In conclave plot high treason, and each day 
Draw sustenance from that fond mother's breast 

91 



Against whose heart their poniards, ready drawn, 

Long to strike home. A nice diplomacy 

Marks every step of the recusant States. 

One after other, legislatures pass 

Secession ordinances. One by one 

The Southern Representatives withdraw. 

Leaving the trail of treason in their wake. 

Thus while events are crowding fast, and faith 

Half falters even in Northern hearts, the stern 

Imperious call to duty thrills the soul 

Of that unmatchable American, 

Who, standing on the dark brink of a chasm. 

Pales not, but bends his shoulders to the task 

Which graves its deepening lines across his brow. 



Ill 



Anderson of old Kentucky, — 
Born and bred in old Kentucky, — 
Prated little of his "honor," 
Cared as little for his life. 
He was of the stuff of heroes, 
92 



(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 
With a soldier's intuition 
That surrender of position 
At beginning of the strife 
Scarce could be considered plucky, 

Though expectant Southern Neros 
Dreamed of fiddling, while sedition 
Through a wounded land was rife; — 
Deemed this man exceeding lucky, 
(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 

That he had a rare occasion 
To be loyal to the South; 
Loyal to a section merely, 

Though betraying by evasion 
What all true men love most dearly, — 
God and country! Treason's mouth 
To the man of old Kentucky, 
(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 

Whispered words beneath its breath. 
Then the War Department sent him 
Where, in Moultrie, rebels pent him, 
While around the soldier plucky, 

93 



(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 

Cannon threatened death. 

Floyd, who prated much of "honor," 
Thought it no disgrace to strip 

Arsenals of war munitions, 
Armories of arms, — to slip 
Through the War Department's portal 
Stores to Southern States, to be 

Ready for the new conditions 
Of the war which slavery 
Had at last made certain, mortal. 
Too, perchance, for one or both 

Of the stern contestants, waiting 
For the signal, haply loath 

First to strike, and ever hating 
Thought of bloodshed in the land. 
And Floyd, thinking he was certain 
Of a willing quick compliance 
By the man of old Kentucky, 
(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 

Sent him, in the firm reliance 

94 



That when time should lift the curtain 

On the drama of the war, 

He would yield the fort's possession 
To the forces of Secession, — 

Yield, nor strive to stand 

Firm against the South's defiance 

And the cannon's roar. 

Three score men and five in Moultrie, — 
In outworn, decrepit Moultrie, — 
Spent the Christmas making merry 
Though the time was full of dole. 
Came an order on the morrow 
From the man of old Kentucky, 
(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 
Silently supplies to ferry, — 

Silently, as though in sorrow. 
Men and arms in boats to carry 
Ofif to Sumter, when the sun 
Should be setting. Every soul 
Then embarking from Fort Moultrie, — 
Outworn and decrepit Moultrie, — 

95 



Passed the guard-boats in the harbor, 
Passed the gates, nor sought to tarry 
Till the destined goal was won. 

Then when Charleston, on the morrow. 
Woke to find the fort deserted, — 
Realized the plan concerted, — 
There was anger far and near; 
And as over Sumter floated 

Free the flag of starry beauty. 
Five and sixty men devoted 
Raised a long and lusty cheer 
For the man of old Kentucky, 
(Anderson of old Kentucky,) 

He who knew a soldier's duty, 
Never knowing fear. 



IV 



How sad the closing in of night, the slow 
Departure of the faint glow of the sun 
Which once had lit Hope's day! 

96 



From patriot hearts, 
Both North and South, behef that some fair way 
Would yet be found for peace, died sorrowfully. 
And in the place of soothing and of scorn, — 
From the great North concession, — from the South 
Insistence upon mastership, — there grew 
Determination, on the one hand, now 
To save the Union, though salvation meant 
War's ravages and ruin; on the other, 
To fight for statehood and perpetual right 
To slavery and secession. Boastfully 
The cry went forth: 'They will not dare attempt 
Coercion of the South," while through the North 
Rang out bold words, wherein the wish, perhaps, 
Was father to the thought: "They will not dare 
To fire upon the flag." And we, who stand 
To-day upon the parapet of time, 
Through history's perspective see that both 
Boast and belief were idle. For behind 
Each stern assertion lay the stalwart will 
Of manhood that was all American, 
Though for the moment severed. It were well 

97 



To ask where, in this mental crisis, stood 

The man about whose personaHty 

All history seemed to turn. The primal call 

For ultimate justice, equity exact, 

Was Lincoln's high incentive. To his soul 

The thought of human bondage was replete 

With all that is abhorrent. To his mind 

A free Republic built on Slavery 

Was a political monstrosity 

Self-doomed to sure destruction. Yet he saw 

With Southern eyes a Southern problem. Here 

The Institution had fixed firm its roots 

In a too pliant soil. No abstract plea 

Could justify a stealage, or make right 

The confiscation of the property 

Of citizens protected by the law. 

He deprecated with his utmost force 

The thought of setting free the slaves without 

Just compensation to the owners, ay, 

Payment in fullest measure. Let the loss 

Thus incidental to a righteous act 

Be borne by all the Nation, not alone 



By those whom circumstance had caught within 
The meshes of its net. To buy the slaves, 
To free them, to give back the precious gift 
Of individual liberty vouchsafed 
To every being by the Almighty, — this 
Was Lincoln's lofty dream. He recognized 
The difference in the races; that the black, 
Inferior in development, could not, 
And should not, ever occupy the plane, 
Of the Caucasian. He renounced with ire 
Social equality of white and black, — 
Renounced it as abhorrent to the sense. 
And fatal to the good, of both. His plea 
Was but for liberty, the human right 
To universal manhood, and the dower 
Of nature to her children. From the hour 
When first he saw a slave upon the block 
Being bartered as a chattel, his great soul 
Turned sick with loathing, and his whole career 
Was molded by the love of freedom. Now, 
When the impending crisis loomed above 
The bent heads of a mighty people, dark 

99 



And ominous as fate, the vision changed, 

And the immediate necessity 

Pressed on him, till upon his heart was writ, 

As Calais upon Mary's, one sole phrase — 

To save the Union. Question of the slave 

Must for the time be put aside, to wait 

The working out of evolution's law. 

'Twas Lincoln's task to save, at any cost, 

The fabric builded by our fathers' hands, — 

Cemented in the blood of patriot sires. 

Such was his aspiration, and, with faith 

Firm fixt in God's omnipotence, he bent 

His shoulders to the wheel, while 'round him grouped 

The loyal manhood of America. 

And feeling, still divided, seemed to grow 

Daily more constant in his constancy. 

Now, in convention at Montgomery, 
A form of government was made to clothe 
Rebellion in the garments of the law; 
And Davis, whose ability was seared 
By such vindictiveness as rarely mars 



An intellect like his, was chosen chief 

Of a great people greatly borne away 

Upon the tide of passion. Solidly 

The people were Secessionists. Not so 

In Texas, where the love of country held 

Its sway in many hearts. 'Twas needful there 

To cozen fraud and turn to treachery, 

Buying the doubtful voters, and at last 

Forging the ballots which forced Texas out 

And tore her from her moorings. One more shame. 

One more humiliation, to bow down 

The head of scorned America! Her forts, 

Her arsenals and ammunition, all 

Were at the bidding of a mob self styled 

A Sovereign State, surrendered tamely, while 

The lone star flag rose in the air above 

The banner of the Nation; and the troops, 

Lacking a leader with a soldier's heart, 

Marched heartless and unsoldierly away. 



lOI 



V 



Plots dark and counterplots. No man might know 

Where the assassins lurked intent to strike 

The standard-bearer down. The boast was heard 

That he whose great commission bore the seal 

Of an untrammeled people should not live 

To execute their will. And as the time 

Drew near for Lincoln to assume the robes 

Of his high office, deep anxiety 

Oppressed all loyal hearts. 

Almost by stealth 
The coming President was hurried through 
The towns and cities which should most have vied 
To do him honor. And when, on the eve 
Of his inauguration, Lincoln stood 
Among Americans within the gates 
Of the American Capital, he felt 
A sense intuitive of threatening clouds 
Which lowered like a pall. Then came the day 
That ushered in an epoch big with fate. 
About the East front of the capitol 



The functionaries of a government 
Upon the brink of ruin gathered where 
Successive Presidents had solemnly 
Taken the oath of office. In the throng 
Stood Seward, he whose statesmanship o'ertopped 
The crafty efforts of his adversaries; 
And Chase, with such a presence as proclaimed 
The noble mind intent on noble aims. 
Firm and erect, the venerable Scott 
Watched with a soldier's eye the pageantry, 
The while, above his white and shaggy brows. 
The anxious lines seemed deepening one by one. 
For guileful treason had nigh reft his hands 
Of every shard of military strength, 
And now, when from the Nation's capitol 
A prayer was offered to the Nation's God, — 
When the mild sceptre of democracy 
Passed from a weakling's coward hand to meet 
The firm grasp of a man, — there were but few 
Trained soldiers to be mustered for a need, 
A handful gathered by the vigilant Scott, — 
Militia, regulars, — a scanty band 

103 



To do a mighty duty. On the stand 
Was Taney, whose soiled ermine ill became 
The administrator of a solemn oath. 
The scholar Sumner and the student Wade 
Were near Buchanan, with his courtly mien 
And all uncourtly spirit; while in front 
Stood the persuasive Douglas, tactfully 
Reaching his hand to hold the hat of one 
Erstwhile his adversary, and in doing so 
Imparting to a menial act the grace 
And dignity of knighthood. From the crowd 
Gleamed eyes whose light of hate was ill concealed 
By an assumed indifference. No man knew 
Whose soul was loyal or whose heart was hot 
With treason's smouldering fire. The air was charged 
With coming tempest; and that strange unrest, 
Half manifest in inarticulate sound, — 
The voiceless bruit and menace of a crowd, — 
Hung as the sultry breath of summer hangs 
Before the lightnings of a rended sky. 
Facing the winds of gusty March, were men 
Long trained at foreign courts, the diplomats 

104 



Whose sophistry was soon to meet the sense 
Of one whose soul was riveted to truth, 
Nor knew evasion. Here were patriots, too, 
Waiting the word of him who came to lead 
A people out of bondage; and here, too, 
Were rebels panting to unloose the leash 
Which held the dogs of war. 

And, towering high 
In that rude majesty which ever wraps 
The prophet like a mantle, Lincoln stood, 
And with uplifted hand and humble heart 
Made oath before the throne of God, and took 
Upon his valiant soul a people's woes. 
Where in the storied pages of the past 
Is writ the record of a mightier scene? 
And where among the uttered words of men 
Is found the pathos of a plea so deep 
As fell from those lips, trembling with the touch 
Of patriot zeal and yearning? 

"Ah!" he cried 
"My fellow countrymen, men of this soil. 
Take heed lest passion lure you to despair. 

105 



This country with its institutions, all 

The blessings that our Heavenly Father showers, 

Is yours, the heritage of you who live 

Amid its hills and vales. Oh, let there be 

No bloodshed to make horrible the green 

Of its inviolate fields. With all the strength 

Within my being, I beseech you pause. 

Ere on the altar of our common land 

You lay destroying fingers. North and South, 

We all are one; we cannot separate. 

Take time to think; there can be nothing lost 

By that delay which but insures the right. 

It has been said that peace and property 

Throughout the South are menaced by the turn 

That brings a new Executive; 'tis false! 

I say, as often I have said before, 

There is no purpose, — no intent, direct 

Or indirect, — to interfere with that 

Peculiar Institution of the South, 

Within the States where now it does exist. 

I have no lawful right to interfere. 

Nor, if I had the right, have I the will. 

io6 



Out of my heart I ask for your belief, 

You who are still dissatisfied. With you 

Must rest the issue of momentous war; 

The government will not assail you, nay, 

Will strain all patience to the utmost test 

Ere plunging into conflict. Pray you mark. 

You have no oath recorded in high heaven 

To break up and destroy the government, 

But I have registered before my God 

An oath to still maintain it. We are friends; 

We cannot, must not, be estranged. The ties 

Which bind us are unbroken. Mystic chords 

Of memory, stretching forth from patriot graves 

And far-off battlefields to living hearts 

And hearthstones over all this teeming land. 

Will yet the chorus of the Union swell, 

When touched again, as surely they will be. 

By better angels of our nature." 

So 
Lincoln the martyr closed, his frame convulsed, 
His high, ungainly shoulders bended down. 
Like Atlas bearing an ungrateful world. 

107 



Above his forehead leonine massed hair 

Hung as the aureole of a god in pain; 

And from the fountains of those earnest eyes 

Welled up the guerdon of unbidden tears. 

Then, for the answer to his high appeal, 

A ribald sneer ran through the listening throng; 

A thousand throats sent forth a jeer, that told 

The hate of treason grown most insolent. 

And Lincoln's mouth turned sadder for a smile 

More pitiful than weeping, and he held 

Outward his toil-worn hands. And from the crowd 

Came back the answer, — ribaldry and jeers. 



io8 



BOOK FOURTH 



\ 



BOOK FOURTH 



"Within an hour we open fire." The words 
Were Beauregard's last message to the man 
Shut Hke a sohtary sentry left 
To hold a gate forlorn. The answer came, 
Prompt, firm, decisive; fearlessly as though 
The grizzled soldier, whose scant garrison 
Made a defense but mockery, held power 
To countervail attack: "We will not yield." 
And even while the sun with later ray 
Kissed the upswelling folds of that dear flag 
Whose stars wrote liberty against the sky. 
The hour sped by, and over Charleston's bay 
There roared the summons to a million sons 
To strike for God and country, roared the doom 
Of blatant treason arrogant and blind; 
And as the echo of the first gun died, 



Hope fled with mobled head, and Fate cried out 
The sentence of a desolated South, 
And all the woes of ruin. 

"They have dared 
To fire upon the flag!" So through the North 
Leaped the wild words that made a people one, — 
Rang out the clarion call to loyal hearts 
To put aside all controversies, fears; 
To spurn the dalliance with a honeyed peace, 
And set stern faces to oncoming war. 
And even as the sturdy Anderson 
Endured the pounding of the rebel shells, — 
Even as, one by one, his magazines 
Rent with expiring crashes the soiled sky, 
Through every hamlet of an outraged land 
Thrilled the determination, now at last, 
To strangle treason, and with pitiless hand 
To crush the hissing serpent which had grown 
To vile maturity. 

Now with strong thews 
The newly wakened giant bends to lift 
The burden on his shoulders. Nerves of steel 



Quiver along a Nation's rounded limbs, 
And thrill with agony so near delight 
That pain is lost in ecstasy. 

"The flag! 
The flag is fallen at Sumter! Now by God! 
These men, who were our brothers, are our foes. 
These faithless children of our mother's womb, — 
These beings who preached honor while they stole, 
And whined of loyalty even as their hands 
Were steeped in treachery, and through the dark 
Groped to strike dastard blows, — these are henceforth 
The common enemy." 

From Maine, whose front 
Faces the silent sunrise, to the sands 
That welcome evening in the Golden Gate, 
Such words and such avowal sweep abroad 
To render action vital. And amid 
The seething and commotion, one great soul 
Remains serene, though bent with sadness down; 
Continues self contained, though bowed before 
The coming desolation and the woe. 
Lincoln, whose anguished heart felt every pang 

113 



Inflicted on his bleeding country, fears 
Nor falters not at all. His call goes forth 
For men, for means, for loyal hearts to serve. 
And from the hills and valleys of the land 
Comes such response as only they may know 
Who, in the crisis of a Nation's life, 
Have marked a Nation's power. Ere the call 
Has echoed backward from New England hills, 
The streets of Boston throb beneath the tread 
Of Butler and his regiments. New York 
Springs to her arms. From Pennsylvania, quick 
To save the capital, the first troops pour 
Into defenceless Washington. And where 
Ohio spreads her sunlit fields, upspring 
Insistent thousands, begging for the right 
To serve their country. An upswelling cheer 
Greets the first bugle call. For every man 
That Lincoln calls for, ten demand the chance 
To serve beneath the colors so disgraced 
And flouted at Fort Sumter. 

Up and down. 
Through cool-aisled forests and lone country roads, 

114 



O'er meadows greening in the April sun, 

Amid the roar of bustHng city streets 

And clack of mill and factory, floats the lilt 

And loyal melody of such a song 

As patriot hearts conceive and bring to life: 

"We are coming, Father Abraham, 
Six hundred thousand strong." 

What though Kentucky fall to insolence. 
And Tennessee refuse her helping hand? 
What though Missouri seek to turn her back 
On that which her best citizens revere? 
'Twere easier to bear these shafts than see 
The sad decadence of Virginia, 
Mother of old time chivalry. And thou 
Fair Maryland, how hope and fear by turns 
Usurp our thoughts of thee! 

Were it well done 
When, through the sullen streets of Baltimore, 
The men of Massachusetts marched to reach 
The country's capital, that thy false sons 

115 



Should play assassin, and all cowardly 

Seek to shoot down the patriot soldiers sent 

To do a patriot's duty? Ah, no, no! 

Yet thou art saved at last, my Maryland, 

And still remain'st an unextinguished star. 

The South, whose hand hath cut the golden thread 

Which bound our hearts in love, no more holds place 

Within Hope's citadel. Alas! the line, 

Once but imaginary, now hath grown 

To be a yawning chasm. The Nation's ships 

Blockade the Southern ports; the Nation's troops 

Pour to the Southern border. From the staffs. 

Even at the gates of Washington, there flies 

The flaunting symbol of black treason, bold 

To rear a head defiant. 'Twas reserved 

For one brave man's strong hand to tear it down, 

And so, at Alexandria, to yield up 

A brave man's life. 

'Twas thus that Ellsworth came 
To win the splendor of a patriot's grave. 
And garner fame immortal, garnering death. 



ii6 



II 

Galloping, galloping over the Southland, 

Horses as eager as riders for battle, 

Guns jarring heavy on lumbering caissons, 

Chains tugging hard at the rings of the traces; 

Up and down, up and down through all the Southland, 

Men pouring into the filling battalions. 

Companies forming and coming together, 

Tallied off quickly, compacted to regiments; 

Thousands on thousands of men from the cotton fields, 

Led into line by the broad-hatted planters, — 

Planters long-haired and unkempt, but with glittering 

Eyes, that shed forth the red glow of the smouldering 

Fires in their bosoms! 

From old Virginia 
Comes the loud call to erect a new nation, — 
Comes proclamation that Richmond is chosen 
Capital city of slavery's stronghold, — 
City whose halls shall henceforward be dedicate 
Unto the uses of such a confederacy. 
Made up of sovereign States, as men of Southern blood 
Long have dreamed fondly of. 

117 



And ere the first demand 
Made on the elder lands, crosses the ocean, 
Friends of America, — friends in prosperity, — 
Turning to foes at the strife's earliest echo, 
Make preparation for prompt recognition; 
Hasten to stultify former professions 
Of faith in the human endowment of liberty. 
Hatred of slavery, blot on America's 
Blazoned escutcheon; hasten, almost ere asked. 
Willingly aid to grant, granting belligerent 
Rights to a section rebellious and passion-mad. 
France, the first friend of the struggling colonies; 
England, twice foe yet professed well-wisher, 
Both alike reach to rebellion the weapons 
To aid in the Nation's destruction. 

All Europe stands, 
Looking askance at the tortured Republic; 
Secretly hoping that, falling asunder. 
All that made mighty the rule of a people 
Worshiping freedom, should perish forever! 
Thus is the theory of bondage exalted 
Most by the lips that had feigned to deplore it; 

ii8 



And o'er the face of Atlantic's wide waters 
Float, in the tones of scarce-veiled exultation, 
Words which are bitter as aloes: "Democracy 
Is but a poor rope of sand!" 

And so galloping. 
Horses as eager as riders for battle, 
Rushes to conflict a valiant people, 
Spurred by encouragement, cheered on by aliens, 
Blind to the fact that the envy of Tyranny 
Ever seeks Liberty's fall. 

Ill 

Johnston, Beauregard and Longstreet, 
Heading columns clad in gray; 

Jackson, Kirby Smith and Early, 
Ewell, Elzey, Jones and Bee; 
Pushing onward their battalions 
In bewildering array, 

While the scouts of Holmes and Evans, 
Creeping back from tree to tree. 
Tell how Federal troops are coming 
With the coming of the day. 

119 



Concentrating on the turnpike 

Leading off to Centreville, 
Forming and again deploying 
Where the Stone Bridge, grim and gray, 
Sees the left flank of the Southrons 

Waiting in the dawn, as still 
As the forms of sculptured sentries, 
For the coming of the fray. 

Through the air of early morning 
Comes the long and sullen roar 
Of a single rifled field-piece; 
And the Federal skirmish line, 
Pressing forward, gives scant warning 
Of the battery soon to pour 

On the ranks of Cocke and Bonham 

Rain of iron and steel. A fine 
Cloud of dust along the turnpike 

O'er the bridge at Sudley Ford, 
Tells the route the loyal column 
Moves upon to cross Bull Run, — 
Tells the story of the coming 

120 



Of the guns whose muzzles poured 
Challenge of Rhode Island's Second, 

While in fury, gun for gun, 
Splintering sound breaks through the woodland. 
Burnside's brave untried brigade 

Sweeps to front, then grows unsteady, 

Falling back on the reserves; 
Sykes's regulars, already 

Bracing each thin rank that swerves 

Through the bushes of Bull Run. 

Heintzleman's division, sweeping 

Onward, bears the starry flag, 
Where the dogged Evans struggles 
To maintain his faltering line; 
While across the ford come creeping 
Sherman's men, till on the hill 
Two brigades, in line of battle, 

Move, as by a single will, 
Past the Henry house, and keeping 
To the stream's high bank, entwine 
In a stern embrace and deadly 



The disordered troops of Bee, 
Who o'er fence and furrow leaping, 
In wild panic break and flee. 

Onward come the blue battalions; 
Backward fall the men in gray; 

From the guns of Ricketts, Griffin, 
Roars a voice which seems to say: 
"All the Nation watch is keeping 
On the issue of to-day." 
Now as rearward seethes and surges 
All the mass of fear-struck men, 

Beauregard with Southern colors 
Strives to rally shattered lines; 
And Bee, turning as he urges 
Courage on his soldiers, cries: 
"Look at the brigade of Jackson; 
Like a stone wall there it stands!" 
Prophecy is oft a mystery, 

And a chance word thus defines 
One whose name through future history 
Like a lifted beacon shines. 



Once again the loyal legions 
Press the column as it flies; 
Once again a rain of iron 
Hurtles from the batteries. 

The brigades of Franklin, Willcox, 
Charge across the broad plateau; 
Stern the face of brave McDowell, 
Watching fortune come and go. 
Palmer's cavalry, in splendid 
Rank on rank, now turn and wheel, 

While the blue and gray seem blended 
In the flash and crash of steel. 

In the hot and hazy waning 
Of the Summer afternoon, 

Comes the desperate final struggle. 
Fry calls Burnside to his aid; 
Howard every nerve is straining. 

While the long Confederate line, 
Reinforced from Johnston's army. 
Presses on the Federal guns. 
Now the rallied ranks are gaining; 

123 



Now a wave of panic runs, 

As the battery of Ricketts 
Falls to silence, and too soon 

Griffin, reft of every gunner, 

Must perforce remain supine. 

And ere sinks the sun to slumber, 

Gray-clad soldiers hold the field, 
Where the dead the hillocks cumber, 

And war's horror stands revealed. 

IV 

Disaster and the crushing of fond hopes, — 
The turning sick at heart, — the ghost of fear 
Reaching its tenuous fingers, and despair. 
Not yet triumphant, but with velvet tread 
Nearing men's consciousness, — such forces filled 
The loyal atmosphere with many a dark 
And half-defined foreboding. 

From Bull Run 
There seemed to come the wail of Liberty, 
Struck down, all undefended of her sons. 

124 



The Union troops had fought with dogged strength, 
Yet, in the issue joined as if to test 
The skill and valor of the North and South, 
Arrayed alas! in hostile ranks, the day 
Was won by Southern dash, and such a zeal 
As bore the symbol of a riven land 
Up to the mouth of loyal guns, and spent 
Most noble blood in most ignoble cause. 
The blue-clad columns, dazed, were falling back 
On Washington. The wires were thrilling news 
To every hamlet of a waiting land 
That boded direful happenings, and fell 
Upon the Nation's hearing like a dirge. 
Was it indeed the truth that Southern men 
Possessed the fighting blood? That Northerners, 
Coarsened of commerce, could no more uphold 
The unsullied banner of a knightly name? 
A mighty people, humbled, answered No! 
Like waters rushing o'er a smiling plain 
When some faint flaw has broadened to a breach 
And left them unconfined, so leaped to war 
Unnumbered thousands, eager to retrieve, — 

125 



Determined to avenge. No longer now 
Were regiments refused. The flood swept on. 
Fort Hatteras surrendered and full soon 
The flag of Union fluttered from its staff. 
McClellan, whose auspicious star burned bright, 
Took from the willing hands of that untamed 
But age-encumbered lion, Winfield Scott, 
Command of troops about the Capital. 
September came, and with it came the tread 
Of stealthy treason luring Maryland; 
But ere the dark design could ripen, fell 
The mailed hand, preventing by arrest 
Assemblage of the legislators, so 
Saving a State from threatened suicide. 
Then came Ball's Bluff, a fight for field and fame; 
And gallant Baker, pierced by volleys, gave 
His true heart's blood to dye with richer hue 
The glorious stripes upon his country's flag. 
Port Royal yielded to the loyal will, 
And, with new energy, redoubled faith, 
The giant of the North shook free his locks, 
Girding anew his limbs for victory. 

126 



Yet Europe, ominous upon her thrones, 
Was evermore unfriendly. 'Twas in vain 
The Great Repubhc looked for moral aid 
From those who once professed a holy zeal 
To set the bondmen free. Commercial needs 
Outweighed the ethic call. The sordid mills 
Of Birmingham and Manchester set up 
The wail of mammon for the daily gorge 
Of raw material to feed the looms 
That made of Cotton king. And fired anew 
By hope enkindled through a foreign hint 
Of intervention, the Confederate States 
Strove to ingratiate, to plead, to fawn. 
That flattery, the handmaiden of Trade, 
Might make revolt triumphant. 

So abroad 
The South despatched her emissaries, men 
Skilled in the use of diplomatic phrase, — 
Eager to grant the utmost favor asked, — 
Endowed with power to bind in solemn pact 
And smooth all dubious issues. On the Trent 
Sailed from Havana Mason and Slidell, 

127 



Bent on accomplishment of such a work 
At two proud courts, St. James and gay St. Cloud. 
And close upon the Trent's heels steamed in haste 
The San Jacinto, under the command 
Of Wilkes the patriot Commodore. Unused 
To idle parleys when quick action meant 
The triumph of the right, he stopped the Trent, 
Took prisoner the Southerners, and steamed 
Back to his country, where the men, interned 
Within Fort Warren's walls, might silently 
Reflect on life's mutations. Then there rose 
A cheer through all the North. The people felt 
Deep irritation at the quick desire 
Of England and of France to recognize 
The rebels as belligerents, and now, 
When England made imperious demand 
That men seized on her ship should be released, 
The irritation grew to passion deep, 
And bitterest resentment. Wilkes's deed 
Won the applause of all. The Congress passed 
A vote of thanks; the Navy's head extolled. 
And all the people praised him. Through the land 

128 



The cry went up of "No concession!" Wide 
Outspread the wave of popular demand 
For war before surrender. 

But one soul 
Remained serene; one well poised intellect 
Rose above passion as a mighty rock 
Rises above the sea. 'Twas Lincoln's hand 
Which stayed the fatal step; 'twas Lincoln's keen 
Unerring sense of right that lifted up 
The banner of consistency, and so 
Saved a distracted country from a leap 
Into disaster fraught with dire result. 
The South within its heart of heart rejoiced 
At such a turn of fate as should bring aid 
And firm alliance with a nation strong 
And on the sea predominant. To this 
The frenzied North was blind. But Lincoln saw, 
And in the homely phrase of common sense 
Said: "One war at a time. Did we not fight 
Great Britain once for doing this same thing 
Which our own Wilkes has done? These prisoners 
Must be surrendered." And his voice was heard 
By ears distraught with passion. 

129 



Thus again 
The wisdom of the patriot held on high 
The scroll whose legend was his country's weal. 

V 

How often hath the historic muse set down 
Words of profoundest import, which perchance 
The living hearers lightly dwelt upon, 
Lacking the knowledge born of later years! 
Lincoln the patriot, hating as he might 
The wrong of human chains, yet clearly saw 
And balanced all the equities. For him 
The prior duty was the primal call 
To save his country from disruption. Naught 
That could be said of moral issues, wrapt 
In the eternal question: "Bond or Free?" 
Could move that massive intellect or swerve 
That ever guiding hand. 

"Our object now 
Is the firm maintenance of the Union. All 
Questions of slavery must bide their time, — 
Be settled in the light that Heaven shall shed 
When our first duty's done." So rang his words, 

130 



And so his facile pen, confirming, wrote: 
"I seek to save the Union, — that alone, — 
Neither to keep nor to destroy the slave. 
If I could save the Union now without 
The freeing of one slave, that would I do; 
If I could save the Union by the act 
Of freeing every slave, that would I do; 
If I could save the Union only by 
Freeing some slaves and leaving others bound, 
I would do that, and deem the action right. 
I shall do only that which helps the cause 
Whose life is part of mine." 

So from the fount 
Of a great spirit flowed the limpid stream 
Of patriotism, unalloyed with self. 
Statesman, not yet emancipator, he 
Nurtured within his heart of heart the twin 
Flowers of right and liberty. By such 
Deep wisdom, rising ever o'er the stress 
Of party passion and the moment's heat, 
States that yet wavered in the balance found 
At last their place within the Nation's home. 

131 



So was Kentucky held, and Maryland; 

And so Missouri, in despite of all 

The schemes of the destroyers, — held in place 

Within the Union arch. And from these three 

Came forty thousand soldiers, clad in blue, 

To fight beneath the stars. 

And still to give 
A touch of the heroic, Stanton came, — 
He of the iron will and stalwart breed, — 
Acrid, irascible, haply too quick 
To pluck the nettle of offence amid 
The flowers of good will, yet ever true 
In steadfastness of purpose to the aims 
Which were his high ideal. Ofttimes his mood 
Tried sorely the great President, who yet 
Knew well the pure gold 'neath the glittering steel 
Of the War Secretary, — knew and bore. 
In that long patience which a parent gives 
To a too petulant child, — bore silently. 
Or with a suasion gentle as the breeze 
Which bends a thorn bush on a day in June. 
And Stanton, holding stoutly to his own, 

132 



Grew first to listen, softening his wish 

To meet that other will, and finally 

Learned to accept the wisdom which, through all 

The darkness of the time, shone beacon-bright 

From Lincoln's towering mind. 

Now from afar, 
Like to the faint notes of a bugle, borne 
Across the listening air, there floats a note 
Of Freedom's coming song. The law was made 
Prohibiting forever in the then 
Existing Territories, slavery. 
And so the second step to tear the roots 
Of bondage from the soil of liberty 
Was taken, while the lurid welkin rang 
With all the strident dissonance of war. 

VI 

Down the road to Shiloh church. 
On a morn of early Spring, 

'Neath the trees where robins perch 
Sudden bullets sing. 
133 



up the road from Shiloh church, 
Sherman's men, unfaltering, 

Through the mud and marshes lurch,- 
Into action swing. 

Unsuspecting in his camp, 

Prentiss, with his tired brigade, 
Lies at rest beneath the damp 

Canvas colonnade. 
Comes the myriad-footed tramp, — 

Comes the gleam of rebel blade,- 
While the tethered horses stamp. 

Startled and afraid. 

Tumbling out, the sleepy men 

Into line of battle form; 
Onward press the foe, and then 

Breaks the fiery storm. 
Crushed before that flood of men, 

In their motley uniform. 
Federals, numbering one to ten, 

Bow beneath the storm. 
134 



Soon, the foe on both his flanks,— 

Guns to left and guns to right, — 
Prentiss sees his shattered ranks 

Breaking into flight. 
All are captured, and the banks 

Of Lick Creek are covered quite 
With the decimated ranks 

Telling of the fight. 

Pittsburg Landing, where the lines 

Of the Federal troops begin. 
Wakes to life as daylight shines 

Through the battle's din. 
Grant, with steady voice, assigns, 

As the regiments rush in, 
Troops to stay retreating lines. 

Hoping yet to win. 

Near the log house on the bluff, 
Looking o'er the Tennessee, — 

Twenty pieces scarce enough, — 
Frowns artillery. 

I3S 



Hurlbut, he of patriot stuff, 

With compacted infantry, 
Stands to meet the summons gruff 

Of the enemy. 

Next McClernand, Sherman, come, 

Their divisions steadying, 
While, with measured beat of drum, 

Wallace strives to bring 
Order to his cumbersome 

Mass of stragglers, rallying 
Round the colors, stricken dumb 

While the bullets sing. 

Thus as sinks the saddened sun 

Far across the Tennessee, 
Half the bloody work is done, 

Half is yet to be. 
Grant growls: 'T've only just begun; 

Though driven back, not whipped are we ; 
The fight to-morrow shall be won ; 

We'll have a victory!" 
136 



Sunday closes. With the dark 

Lew Wallace with five thousand men, 
Comes and glows the dying spark 

Of a hope again. 
Monday dawns ; and ere the lark 

Trills his welcome, marsh and fen 
See the opposing lines that mark 

Stern resolves as when 

In the bright and buried past 

Greeks in burnished corselets, high 
Held aloft their shields, and cast 

Headlong, valiantly. 
Life and honor to the last 

On the field where, silently. 
Waging battle, furious, fast. 

Warriors fight and die. 

Now the splendid corps of Buell 
Of the army forms the left, 

And with Johnston's right a duel 
Fights till nearly cleft; 
137 



And, disheartened by the cruel 
Death of Johnston, the bereft 

Southern legions fall as fuel 
Burned in warp and weft. 

On the right the battle rages 

Through the long and bloody day; 
Crittenden the foe engages, 

Naught his hand can stay. 
Brave McCook, through all the stages 

Of the turbulent affray 
Writes his name on history's pages, 

Glorious for aye! 

So was Shiloh lost and won, 
On those early April days. 

Where the river's waters run 
Neath the Western haze. 



138 



VII 



spring blooms to Summer and the Summer wanes, 
And as the hectic glow of coming death 
Touches to strange new beauty whispering leaves, 
Nature seems hearkening to a message filled 
With mystic spiritual meanings. 

So it was 
That they who watched the heavy hand of Time 
Pass a rude palm across the patient face 
Of him who bore his country's burden, saw 
The presage of a season wherein peace 
Should come at last to dwell eternally. 
The lines that marked those hollow cheeks were graved 
In deeper emphasis, and o'er the brow 
The shadow of a sadness grew divine 
In growing deeplier human. The high stoop 
Of weary shoulders bent a little more; 
And such a light illumed those deep gray eyes 
As spoke of thoughts no man might know. 

Perhaps 
The memoried figure of Anne Rutledge passed, 

139 



In visioned loveliness, across his dreams, 
And scenes of old romance, like quaint conceits, 
May oft have mingled with the strenuous, stern 
And unrelenting problems of the war. 
So, in the darkest summer of his life. 
Did Lincoln hand in hand with Nature go. 
The while the carnage ceased not. 

Then there came 
September, big with fate and stained more red 
Than autumn's gorgeous touch might emulate; 
For o'er the page of history fell a name, — 
Antietam, — and the hearts of men stood still. 
Turn thy face, Mercy! Let thy pitying eyes 
No more behold the sodden fields of blood. 
Take cognizance no more of riven limbs. 
And wounds which from dumb mouths seem yet to cry 
Against the hell of conflict! 

From beyond 
Potomac's marshy banks Lee's legions came, 
While Hooker crossed Antietam, out of range. 
Then turning, swept into the field and formed 
His lines for battle, Ricketts on the left. 

140 



Meade with his Pennsylvanians strongly held 

The centre, while the guns of Doubleday 

Opened upon a rebel battery 

Which sought to enfilade the loyal line. 

Then darkness swept, like a swart mantle, down, 

And all the thousands of opposing men 

Slept on their arms till dawn. 

At daylight came 
The rush to action. Just beyond a wood, 
Across a plowed field that in Hooker's front 
Lay brown beneath the early Autumn sun, 
A battery pushed its devastating way 
To a sere cornfield, which, before the day 
Should sink to slumber, was foredoomed to be 
Soaked with America's best blood. Here Meade 
Was side by side with Ricketts, facing there 
The thin brigade of Lawton and the men 
Of Jackson's own division. Hooker's corps 
Hurled itself headlong on the rebel host 
Till Hood's division, coming up, brought hope 
To those who faltered. 



141 



Then the fresh brigades 
Of Gordon, Crawford, both of Mansfield's corps, 
Came to support the wavering Union Hne, 
And mid the crash of guns and rending scream 
Of shells which hurtled death along the air, 
The carnage held its sway, and brave men lay 
In awful heaps amid the serried corn. 
So wore the mad day to its bloody close. 
The while through streets of Sharpsburg rumbling went 
The carts and wagons improvised to do 
The ambulance's duty, laden each 
With its soul-sickening burden of dead flesh. 
Such was Antietam, — such the hideous tale 
Which, written in the page of history, makes 
And mars a scene of that wide drama whose 
Unfolding is the story of a world. 



142 



BOOK FIFTH 



BOOK FIFTH 

I 

How deeply rooted in the human breast, 
How firmly seated in the human soul, 
Is that large aspiration, unrepressed 
By any law, defying the control 
Of all tradition, love of freedom, whole 
Untrammeled and unchecked, which through the race 

Courses like life blood, levying its toll 
Of discontent divine, and o'er the face 
Of men the symbols of its presence quick to trace. 

Sweet Liberty, what realms of joy are thine! 
What music marks the fall of riven chains! 
What light celestial o'er thy brow doth shine, 
Thou goddess of our country's hills and plains! 
Woe ever to the tyrant who disdains 
The lofty word thy lips articulate, 

And woe yet deeper to a land where reigns 
Enthroned slavery, the fitting mate 
Of sin-conceived Rebellion and unreasoning Hate. 

145 



Long in the brooding bosom of the slave 
The seed of Hberty had dormant lain; 
Long in a land of promise yearning gave 
An added sharpness to the dole of pain. 
Across the flag the sanguinary stain 
Of legal bondage bowed a Nation's head; 

Till those who loved America were fain 
To harbor hope, commingled oft with dread, 
That soon the curse should be forever banished. 

Yet ever with an ordered motion flow 

The under currents of life's restless sea; 
The mind that made the law alone doth know 
How long fulfilment of the law's decree 
Shall wait on circumstance. But destiny 
Is thwarted never, and there comes at last 

The end that crowns the work, that law may be 
Supreme to-day as in the storied past, — 
Fixt as the hours when Fate her silent die hath cast. 



146 



Through mists of all the years since Lincoln saw 

His fellow beings bartered at the block, 
Had gleamed the light of God's eternal law, 
Impregnable and moveless as a rock 
That rears its head, nor ever recks the shock 
Of weltering waves, whose crested summits tower 
In hissing foam which serves to make a mock 
Of its own nothingness. Now came the hour 
To strike, for he who had the will had now the power. 

Not hastily, but after labored thought. 

The great American saw clear the way, 
Stern logic of events at last had brought 
The line of duty to the light of day. 
No longer need that earnest spirit pray 
For guidance, since a word of high command 

Bade him go boldly on, nor longer stay 
The deed awaiting his obedient hand. 
That dowered with liberty a long defrauded land. 



147 



Thus in conjunction came the hour and man 

To strike from milHons fetters which should be 
The future symbols of a tyrant's plan 
To thwart the uplift of humanity. 
Thus came the sword of righteousness to free 
Each base slave from a baser owner's will, 

Cleaving tradition that the world might see 
How outraged Liberty is potent still 
Her mission and her purpose ever to fulfill. 

So Abraham Lincoln wrote his glorious name 

Beneath the proclamation which endowed 
The slaves with freedom and himself with fame 
More lasting than a Caesar's, and more proud. 
Above the fleeting plaudits of the crowd 
The story of this deed, through all the years. 

Shall echo in reverberations loud 
And fill the measured music of the spheres. 
Touching with joy the memory of human tears. 



148 



II 

At Falmouth, where the Rappahannock runs 
Serenely smiling to the winter sky, 
The gallant Sumner massed his men and sought 
To cross to Fredericksburg, now occupied 
By Barksdale's Mississippi riflemen, 
Who, from behind the shelter of the walls 
Of buildings and of gardens, filled the air 
With the staccato of his sharpshooters. 
The while Lee's engineers upon the heights 
Reared hasty breastworks, seeking to repel 
The loyal gunboats steaming up the stream 
Near to Port Royal. Further up, the bluffs 
Leaned nearer where the river narrowed. Thence 
The guns of Burnside pounded on the town, — 
The stubborn town that hugged its treason close, — 
Till Fredericksburg was rid of Barksdale's gray 
And dust-begrimed sharpshooters, and the streets 
Echoed the tread of loyal feet once more. 
Upon the left was Franklin, pushing on 
To lay pontoons, o'er which the army passed, 
Filling the long hours of the sombre night 
With the low muffled sound of myriad feet, 

149 



Hasting to form in line of battle where 
The looming shapes of Lee's Confederate ranks, 
Full eighty thousand strong, in silence stood 
Awaiting the assault. There on the right 
The corps of Stonewall Jackson, firm, compact, 
Was fashioned for defense, while on the left 
Was Longstreet, heading long, thin lines of gray, 
As moveless as the shrubbery whose leaves 
Seemed listening for the call to bloody deeds. 
Now through the mist a sudden burst of sun 
Glinted upon the Union troops, whom Couch 
Led from the battered buildings of the town 
To capture Marye's Hill. 

No braver men 
Did ever smile on death than these who rushed 
Even to the base of that rude wall of stone. 
Behind whose shelter rebel batteries, masked, 
Belched forth the red hell of their cannonades. 
Alas! the heroic men of Hancock's corps 
Went down like grass before the reaper's blade; 
Alas! for those brave Irish hearts that beat 
Within the breasts of Meagher's bold brigade, 
Dashing itself again, and yet again, 

150 



Against the heights impregnable, until 

The thousands that had charged lay on the field 

With hearts that beat no more. 

Then Hancock's corps 
Charged up the flashing heights, and French's men 
Rushed madly on the death which Barksdale dealt 
Unsparing from the safety of his wall. 
Howard's division, in support, and part 
Of the strong corps of Wilcox, held the rear, 
To keep communication with the town. 
And even as the day drew near its close 
The slaughter of brave men went madly on, 
And only night brought silence. 

Such the price 
Which freemen pay for liberty! Such, too. 
The hideous toll of war when treason lifts 
A blood-stained hand to take a Nation's life 
In sateless rage. And such was Fredericksburg. 

ni 

Through the dark winter Victory held her scales 
At even balance, and, as dawned the Spring, 



Each side was fain to flatter hope, nor yield 
To the deep craving for surcease of all 
The agonies of war. At Washington 
The Congress of the Nation, grown to know 
The depth of that great soul whose utter faith 
Made doubt impossible, in stern resolve 
Bended new energies, and cast aside 
All minor dififerences in the work 
Which yet remained to do. But still there lurked, 
Like poison adders hissing in the grass. 
Through all the straining North, the "Copperheads," 
Intent to strike their coward blows where'er 
Shelter from harm made treason tenable. 
How wide the contrast with their brethren quick 
To meet the issue and face death like men 
Upon the Southern fields! Lee, moved to draw 
His sword by a misguided sense, yet true 
In every action of his manly life; 
Johnston and Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, brave 
Unflinching soldiers fighting for a cause 
Made less ignoble by their valor, — these 
Stand forth as men, demanding from our minds 
The lofty judgment of a high ideal. 

152 



But they who, at the North, by word and deed, 

Sought ever to embarrass and destroy 

The government whose sustenance they sucked, — 

These serpents risking naught, but from the dark 

Spitting their venom in the hope to kill, — 

Deserve from human judgment only scorn, — 

The averted face of every honest man! 

Nor was there unanimity to seal 

And make efficient efforts of the North 

To enforce the Union's supremacy. 

Among the generals jealousy too oft 

Uttered insidious whispers. 

More intent 
To win the unearned plaudits of the crowd 
By claiming credit for another's act, 
Than to cooperate to bring about 
Results of greatest import, some of those 
Whose post of power should have instilled the thought 
Of high endeavor showed the petty wish 
For self aggrandizement. 

And Lincoln's heart 
Was heavy at the thought of victory lost 
Because of aid withheld. Nor did the time 

153 



Bring cheer to the great, loyal people held 
In a prolonged suspense. The Spring grew fair, 
And pipings of the birds made Nature glad, 
Despite the dirge of murder in the air; 
May-day was mild, when westward on the road 
From Chancellorsville the regulars of Sykes 
Marched cautiously, soon coming on a force 
Of rebel troops, who, in extended line. 
Strove to outflank them. Seeking to connect 
With Slocum's corps and failing, Sykes fell back, 
And when night came the men in blue and gray 
Alike were conscious that the dawning day 
Must bring the groaning harvest of red death 
To many a valiant soldier. 

With the light 
Came Sickles' corps from Fredericksburg, and soon 
Birney's division, pounding with its guns, 
Scattered confusion through Confederate ranks; 
Then charging, in its onslaught carried down 
All opposition, capturing at last 
A half a thousand prisoners. The day 
Wore on with varying fortune. Afternoon 

154 



Found Birney formed in hollow square, his guns 

Placed in the centre. Barlow's tried brigade 

Supporting well his right; but Whipple's Third, 

Relied on to support the left, came not; 

And while the Union leaders waited, keen 

To push success to victory, there rushed 

A horde of panic-stricken fugitives 

From the Eleventh Corps, in Birney's rear; 

And these bore tidings of disaster wrought 

Upon the First division, — Deven's men, — 

Caught unaware, and in an avalanche 

Of Stonewall Jackson's army swept away 

In awful wreck and havoc. Suddenly 

From out the thick woods poured the men in gray, 

Charging from three sides, sweeping to their doom 

Down the old road from Chancellorsville, in rout, 

Schurz's division, — rolling from their path 

Von Steinwehr's men, and spreading through the ranks 

Of all the Federal troops the panic bred 

By threat of a disaster unexplained. 

Sickles, with cavalry of Pleasanton 

Preparing for a charge, was quickly brought 

155 



To sense of his own danger, when he learned 
That Howard's corps was crushed, and in his rear 
The rebels were triumphant. There was one, 
One only thing to do; and Pleasanton, 
Turning to Major Keenan of the staunch 
Eighth Pennsylvania, gave his command: 
"A charge is needed. Take your regiment 
Into those woods, and hold the enemy 
At any cost till I can get my guns 
Into position." 

Keenan said: "I will." 
And, with his scant five hundred men, he charged 
Into the thirty thousand troops in gray. 
Checking them for a moment, till he fell, 
Dying a glorious death with duty done. 
Meanwhile the artillery of Pleasanton 
Made ready in the road to greet with shot 
The oncoming enemy, who from the woods 
Displayed the loyal flag, in hope to cheat 
The Union troops, upon whose frowning guns 
They waited but to charge. The subterfuge 
Availed but little, and at last they came 

1S6 



On, on, as burst to flame the gaping mouths 
Of cannon belching death, and piHng high 
The roadway with the dead. And in that hell 
Fell Stonewall Jackson, wounded mortally, 
The bravest soldier in a cause forlorn. 



IV 



Few could see as Lincoln saw 
Clear the working of the law 
That America must be 
Welded close in unity. 
Not two peoples, one alone 
Could insure to Freedom's throne 
Permanence and power to draw 
Men to action. Such the law. 
In the East was Richmond, still 
Subject to a rebel will; 
In the West stood Vicksburg, frowning 
O'er the Mississippi, crowning 
With its black defiant guns 
Bluffs at whose green bases runs 
157 



That onsweeping, mighty strccim 
On whose breast the flatboats gleam, 
Bearing fruits of industry 
Southward to the shining sea. 
Now throughout the waiting land 
Comes a summons and command, 
Comes a patriot message sent 
By a patriot President: 
"We must have, as have we shall, 
Richmond, treason's capital; 
But so long as in the West 
Rebel strength is unrepressed, — 
While an alien power holds sway 
O'er our inland waterway, — 
We can never be as one, 
Moving on in unison." 
Wise the words, and happily 
Time was ripe for wisdom; he 
Who from out the West had brought 
To his task the single thought 
To uphold his country's cause 
And enforce her righteous laws, — 
is8 



Grant, the silent, came to press 
Sternly onward to success. 
His the keen and careful plan 
When the boats of Porter ran, 
Past the flashing batteries. 
Lighting up the sombre skies, 
Past the forts of Vicksburg, on 
To the mounds of Warrenton. 
Then the transports, silently 
As a tide which seeks the sea. 
Under cover of the night, 
Floated, ere the morning light. 
Safe below the city, where 
Grant awaited them. With care 
Every move was made. Each day, 
Through the sunny month of May, 
Saw the lines more closely drawn,— 
Saw the coming of the dawn 
Which should usher in the day 
Of the rescued Union's sway. 
One by one the strongholds fell. 
Though the rebels fought full well. 

1 59 



Soon, above the state-house dome 
In the town of Jackson, — home 
Of a recreant State, the flag 
Of the Nation floated. Brag 
As they might of dare and dash, 
Southern soldiers, mid the crash 
And the ceaseless roar of guns, 
Where the Yazoo swiftly runs. 
Fled across the farms wherethrough 
Grant's converging lines of blue 
Pressed, and ever closelier drew. 
Round the goal of long desire, — 
Vicksburg, city rimmed with fire. 
Shut in the beleaguered place, 
Pemberton, brought face to face 
With starvation, grim and gaunt. 
Long withstood the siege of Grant; 
Holding out, from day to day, 
While the gunboats kept their play 
Ceaselessly of shot and shell 
On the crumbling citadel. 
Less and less the rations grew, 
1 60 



While the Southern standard flew 

Through the lengthening days of June, 

Hoping for relief, yet soon 

Forced to ask for terms. So fell 

Treason's Western citadel. 

Carrying downward in its fall 

Rebellion's dearest hopes, while all 

The loyal North sent up a cry 

Of triumph and of victory; 

And lips devout found time to pray 

Upon the Nation's natal day. 



V 



At Frederick lay the armies of the blue; 
At Hagerstown the gray. The intrepid Lee, 
As one who quenched at last a burning thirst 
To quaff from Northern beakers, gave command 
To enter Pennsylvania's wide domain. 
And now, at Chambersburg, his solid ranks 
Stood, waiting till his strong hand should unleash 
Their eager spirits for the coming fray 

i6i 



Which all felt hovering, like an imminent storm, 
Athwart the silent sky. 

Then came the word 
To concentrate at Gettysburg. To Meade, 
Gallant and wise yet ever cautious, fell 
Supreme command of the great army, now 
Destined at last to conquer and retrieve 
Long wasted days of sickening delay 
And unexplained inaction. North and South, 
A sense intuitive, pervasive, strong. 
Filled every breast with knowledge that the hour 
Had struck for the decisive final test. 
Upon whose issue hung the mighty fate. 
Of a divided people. And as rose 
The reddened sun upon July's first day. 
The corps of Reynolds, marching through the town. 
Came unexpectedly upon the foe. 
Before whose heavy force he fell back, till 
The enemy, grown rash, advanced too far 
And quickly learned his error. But alas! 
The gallant leader, pressing to the front, — 
The patriot Reynolds, — garnered to himself 
The meed of noble death. 

162 



Then Howard reached 
The field of action and assumed command, 
Leaving his corps in charge of Schurz. 

High up 
On Cemetery Hill, the men in blue 
Looked out upon the ranks of Ewell, — they 
Whom Stonewall Jackson had so often led 
To victory for the wrong. Once and again 
Repulsed, the gray line faltered and drew back; 
But at the last the rebels held the town; 
And as the sun declined across the hills, 
Each army sought in concentration, strength 
To meet the morrow's issue. 

To the right 
Of Cemetery Hill, the Federals lay. 
In wide extension towards Rock Creek, beyond 
Whose whispering waters reared Wolf Hill. 

The left 
Bent Westward, even to Round Top, on whose slope 
More blue battalions made a crescent, marked 
In sombre outlines. With the dark there came 
The Third and Twelfth corps, and ere night had 
reached 

163 



Its turning, Meade arrived upon the field, 
Quickly in order of battle placing all 
The troops at his command. Upon the right 
Was Slocum with the Twelfth. 

The Third and Fifth, 
With Sickles in their forefront, held the left; 
While at the centre Hancock, like a rock. 
Stood at the head of all that war had left 
Of the brave First and Second. Howard, too, 
With the Eleventh, kept a line compact. 
Ready to shift at need to either wing. 
Along the crest of Cemetery Hill 
A hundred Union guns, in grim array, 
Looked down upon the field. 

The morning broke. 
Yet those two silent hosts no movement made. 
But, like opposing lions, couchant, glared 
Each in the other's eyes. The morning sped 
To noontide, and the field was silent still; 
The noon, in shimmering heat, gave place to all 
The languor of a Summer afternoon; 
Yet no gun spoke. And Meade, who knew full well 

164 



The strength of his position, waited still 
The coming of the foe. 

"They must attack; 
Be ready when they come." So said the keen 
And ever cautious Meade. Then, as the day 
Wore on to longer shadows, suddenly 
A virulent mile of fire leaped into life 
Along the rebel line. The maddening roar 
Of field artillery, the answering scream 
Of hurtling shells, rended the Summer air; 
And from the skirts of Cemetery Hill 
A rain of iron death implacably 
Poured on the ranks of gray. 

Then came the yell, — 
The Southern yell which fired the Southern blood, — 
And, sweeping in mad charge, the regiments. 
Brigades, divisions, dashed against the storm 
Of grape and canister, which never ceased 
Their awful hail of hell. 

Up to the guns 
The withering gray lines pushed themselves, and like 
Sun-stricken snow, melted to nothingness. 

i6s 



The Federal gunners by the hundreds fell 
Beside their pieces, but yet others came 
To serve the guns and die. 

Again, again, 
The rebel hosts were shattered and hurled back; 
The men in blue across their piled-up dead 
Loaded and fired and fell. Yet onward came 
The Southern thousands, while, stern man to man, 
American fought with American, 
Acrid, unyielding, strong! 

Across the fields 
Pressed Longstreet, Pickett, Hood, McLaws and Heth, 
Dashing their legions against Hancock's ranks, 
Upreared like rocks that balked a seething sea. 
And Hancock, wounded, through his anguish laughed, 
As to the muzzles of our batteries 
The graybacks fought their way, and still were struck 
Down to the sodden earth by loyal arms. 
Now Sickles from the front was borne away 
Desperately wounded, and as victory seemed 
Hung in the balance, Sedgwick's gallant corps. 
Weary with marching but undaunted still, 

i66 



Swept like an avalanche upon the field, 
Crushing the foe back on his crumbling lines. 
Now upon Slocum on the right there came 
A sudden dash by Early; but again 
The Northern veterans, like giants, hurled 
Rebellion back and triumphed. 

So the day, — 
The bloody second day of Gettysburg, — 
Drew to its awful close; and on the field 
Unnumbered thousands lay in hideous heaps, — 
The dead and dying, — in a mute appeal 
To human dread and pity. 

With the dawn 
Again the guns of Longstreet roared abroad 
Their challenge of defiance, and again 
The blue lines swung to action. Slocum rushed 
With splendid vigor upon Early; Sykes 
Pushed his division up, and Humphreys' corps 
Swooped upon Stonewall Jackson's men, who soon 
Were driven backward. But ere yet the day 
Had ripened to its fulness, all at once 
Lee hurled the whole strength of his army straight 

167 



On Cemetery Hill. His hundred guns 
Poured their concentric fire upon the massed 
And wearied blue battalions. Through the air 
The riven rocks and uptorn earth were hurled; 
The trees went down before that blast, and men 
And horses fell about their guns. Then came 
The answering artillery, till far 
Across the green miles of the ruined farms 
The echoes shrieked of war. 

Now Pickett charged 
In mad abandon on our infantry 
Along the road which led to Emmettsburg; 
And Gibbon with his Second Corps stood fast. 
Waiting the impact. "Hold your fire," he cried. 
"They're not yet near enough." And even as 
He spoke, the rebel steel flashed in the sun 
Close to our rifle-pits. "Now fire." A blaze 
Of death flamed down the line, — the long, curved 

line, — 
Of that brave Second Corps; and Pickett's men 
Reeled, shattered, back to waiting death, and broke 
In wild confusion. Those who in retreat 

i68 



Saw but the end of all, threw down their arms, 
Surrendering by the thousands. Then there came 
A panic spreading through the Southern host; 
Whole regiments surrendered. On the field, 
Amid the dead and dying, lay the arms 
Discarded by defeated men, who chose 
Surrender as a welcome refuge. 

Thus 
Was fought and won the bloodiest battle known 
In all the records of this Western world; 
And as the remnants of Lee's army crossed 
Once more the wide Potomac, in his soul 
He must have heard the knell of Southern hopes, 
Even as the elated hearts of loyalists 
Acclaimed fruition in acclaiming Meade. 



VI 



In bleak November, standing on that field 
Heroic in the annals of the world, 
A patriot spoke the words of prophecy, 
A prophet worshiped at his country's shrine. 

169 



And as across the dim dismantled farms 
Chill Autumn sighed, the unremembering winds 
Bore on their wings the message of a seer 
To the remembering years: 

"Our fathers here, 
Four score and seven years ago, brought forth 
A Nation new, conceived in liberty. 
And dedicated to the truth that all 
Men are created equal. Now we wage 
A mighty civil war, to test the strength 
Of such a Nation. On this battlefield 
We meet to dedicate a resting place 
For those who here gave up their lives that we 
Might, as a living people, still endure. 
Our act is fit; but in a larger sense 
We cannot consecrate or hallow ground 
Already hallowed by the imperial dead, — 
They who in struggling here have set their deeds 
So far above our praising. 'Tis for us 
To dedicate to the unfinished work 
Ourselves, in dear devotion to the dead, — 
Heroic souls who in a holy cause 

170 



Gave the last measure of a patriot's love. 
Let us find here our duty. Let us here 
Highly resolve that they who on this field 
Breathed out their lives, shall not have died in vain,- 
That our loved Nation, under God, shall have 
New birth of freedom, and that government 
Of, by, and for the people, shall not cease 
Or perish from the earth." 

And Lincoln's voice. 
In tones which told of tears, became the wraith 
Of music falling off along the breeze, — 
A melody to fill the souls of men. 
Wrapt in the mantle of the silences. 



171 



BOOK SIXTH 



BOOK SIXTH 



Vicksburg and Gettysburg! How thrill the names 
Within the porches of the ears long strained 
To catch the first notes of victorious peace! 
Till now hope long deferred had sickened hearts 
Filled with the love of home and native land; 
Till now a fratricidal contest brought 
Results but indecisive. But at last 
Men knew the tide had turned; for Grant and Meade, 
Hurling rebellion back to feed its spleen 
Upon the ofifal of its own chagrin, 
Set bounds forever to the onward sweep 
Of Lee, whose boast had been that Southern steel 
Should sweep the spoil of Pennsylvania farms, — 
A boast well amplified by threats which fell 
From the thin lips of Davis, grown apace 
In insolence and malice. "Soon," he cried, 

175 



"We'll carry war where sword and torch may glut 
Their appetite within the densely packed 
Great cities of the North." 

But Fate, that holds 
A scale whose dipping no man may foresee, 
Ruled otherwise. With Vicksburg captured, all 
The taint of treason that had soiled the air 
Where the great Mississippi seeks the sea. 
Was blown away, and rebel territory 
Severed in twain forever. In the West 
Rebellion's power was broken. In the ranks 
Of a free Nation's army now there served 
A hundred thousand freedmen, whose dark skins 
No longer bore the brand of slavery. 
And in whose hearts dwelt gratitude, and all 
The new lit fires of liberty. Then came 
"The Rock of Chickamauga," — Thomas, — brave 
To save an army, and snatch victory's flower 
From shadows of defeat. Grant, silent, stern, 
Assumed command at Louisville, and brought 
The tempered power of an iron will 
To render action vital. Up the heights 

176 



Of Lookout Mountain Sherman's forces charged, 
And from the end of Missionary Ridge 
Hurled down destruction on a fleeing foe. 
Hooker, impetuous, drove the Southern host 
Far up the western slope, and through the woods 
Sent scurrying, panic struck, the broken ranks 
Of rebel regiments. The next day saw 
The army of the Cumberland assail 
The field works grouped on Missionary Ridge, 
And at the bayonet point sweep out the men 
Who, under Bragg, had fought in gallant style 
To save a waning cause. To Tunnel Hill 
The dauntless Thomas now pursued and fought 
Again the harassed Bragg, while Burnside met 
And, with the help of Sherman, backward turned 
The men of Longstreet, who in swift retreat 
Seeking Virginia, left Tennessee 
In full possession of the Union arms. 
Thus came relief to those enduring souls 
Whose loyalty no persecution balked, 
When in the mountains of their Western homes 
They dwelt without protection from the land 
Whose flag they dearly loved. 

177 



And Lincoln saw 
As in a glass of fate the glimmering dawn 
Spread, like a hint of coming joy, across 
The silent slumbering hills. A prescience filled 
The chambers of his brain, and through his dreams 
Wove pictures, haply born mysteriously 
In that large spiritual nature, — ^knit perchance 
Into the fabric of to-day's events, 
Even as the imagination of a seer 
Colors all prophecy to make it real. 
"I have a dream that comes and comes again, 
Asleep or waking, — in the night, the day, — 
I know not whence it comes, or what should bode 
Its strange persistence and the vividness 
Of its appearing. It is of a ship. 
With canvas set and bellying in the wind, — 
A ship fast sailing to an unknown port, — 
Freighted with hope; with helm held hard and bow 
Leaping across the foam." 

So spoke the man 
Whose rugged hand guided the ship of State, — 
Whose human heart bled with a people's woes 
And bore a Nation's burden. 

178 



II 



Onward swept 
The tide of victory. Yet no great deed 
Reaches fruition unalloyed of toil 
And sweat of bended brows. 

The call went forth 
For men to carry forward to the end 
The country's vital struggle, and so crush 
Into the ashes of its baleful fires 
Rebellion's hateful form. The draft became 
The unavoidable recourse of war, 
And States and people bowed, save in New York 
Whose unavailing riots did but blot 
The 'scutcheon of a city, proud and rich 
Yet swarming with the men of foreign birth 
And fire-bred fugitives from a rebel South, 
Who had not learned the patriot's creed. To these 
Were joined that horde of coward souls whose name, 
The "Copperheads," sounded in honest ears 
Like some fell serpent's hiss, — beings too mean 
To venture worthless lives in any cause, 

179 



Yet prone to blatant mouthings safe at home, 
And, like assassins crawling in the dark. 
Seeking to stab a mother in the back, 
The while they shared her bounty. 

But the wheels 
Of destiny could not be blocked by hate. 
Nor Freedom's cause be thwarted of its goal; 
And as Time turned the page, another year 
Saw a united North more firmly set, — 
More solidly determined than before, — 
To save the Union and forever blot 
Treason and slavery from the records marred 
By blood-stained fingers. 

Now the time was ripe 
To incorporate in the fundamental law 
The prohibition of the right to hold 
Black men in bondage, throughout all the length 
Of a land dedicate to liberty. 
So was Emancipation made complete. 
And so was Lincoln justified. 

Meanwhile 
Grant, called to the Potomac, came to take 

1 80 



Into his vigorous hands the threads left loose 
By Meade, who faltered on the heels of fate, 
And, after victory gloriously won. 
Failed strangely to crush Lee, who crossed again 
The broad Potomac to his former lines. 
Upon the soil of old Virginia stood 
The ranks of long opposing armies, each 
Seasoned to war's mutations. Grant and Lee 
At last were face to face; the hero one 
Of Vicksburg and the storied Western fields; 
The hope the other of a militant South, 
Weakened but still unconquered. 

As the Spring 
Ripened to Summer, came the clash of steel, — 
The rending of the air with deadly fire. 
The Rapidan was crossed, and followed fast 
The bloody battles of the Wilderness. 
At Opequan the gallant Sheridan 
Drove Early from the field, and following 
Even to the Blue Ridge passes, ravaged all 
The fruitful valley, leaving desolate 
The one time smiling fields. But Early crossed 

i8i 



Again the mountains, and the Federal troops, 
Retreating in confusion, made a stand 
At Middletown, from whence the voice of guns 
Reached Sheridan at Winchester. 

Like Hght 
He rode in furious haste, and to the field 
Brought such magnetic presence as inspired 
Each man with double courage, and insured 
The quick repulse of Early, who was fain 
To flee with broken ranks. 

So came the end 
Of war in Shenandoah Valley; so 
Rose to the stature of a hero he 
Whose sobriquet became a shibboleth: 
"Cavalry Sheridan." 

Now Sherman drew 
His lines about Atlanta. Towards the sea 
He bent his soldierly, adventurous eyes. 
"We cannot stay," so wrote the hero of historic deeds, 
"Upon the mere defensive. I prefer 
To make a wreck of roads and country here, 
From Chattanooga to Atlanta, then 

182 



Send back my wounded, and through Georgia move 
With an effective army to the sea. 
War, which is hell, cannot be delicate; 
I must move, smashing all things, to the sea." 
And Grant, more cautious, yet demurred, but soon 
Gave Sherman all his will, and Sherman cast 
His fortunes in the balance, cutting all 
Communications in his rear, and so 
Marched onward to the sea. 

Then Farragut, 
While thus the Union arms on land bore high 
A laureled victory, seized upon Mobile, 
His vessels sweeping down, unmindful how 
Torpedoes barred the way. Thus history grew 
Into romance, and on Time's tablets wrote 
The record of imperishable deeds. 



Ill 



Amid the roar of war is heard the voice 
Of civic duty, calling through the land 
The approaching termination of the rule 

183 



Of him on whom the people set their hopes, — 
Of him whose heart the people knew was true, — 
Whose staunch integrity and loyal faith 
No one could call in question. East and West 
The stern demand was made that none but he 
Should be entrusted with the Nation's fate, — 
That none but he should consummate the work 
Begun by him and by his wisdom brought 
In sight of fair fruition. Some there were. 
Inspired by ignorance, envy, or the zeal 
Which ever advocates a change, who strove 
To nominate some stranger to lead on 
The hosts of Union to the wished-for end. 
Such men as Greeley, honest in intent, 
But easily beguiled, and overfond 
Of lending ear to his own vain conceits. 
Puffed with a reputation grown beyond 
The sum of his deserts. Such men as Chase, 
Disloyal to his chief, while doubtless true 
To what he deemed the right. Such as Fremont, 
Hot-headed in a righteous cause, but prone 
To strangle prudence with publicity. 

184 



These men and many more made argument 

Against renomination of the man 

To whose sagacity and splendid zeal 

The Nation owed its life. But all in vain 

The opposition strove to drown the call 

Of a free people for the trusted chief 

Who dwelt within the hearts of all who held 

Country above ambition. 

Thus the choice 
Fell once again on Lincoln. Once again 
He stood upon the Eastern portico, 
Where, in the mists of a departed hour, 
He plead for peace, and, holding forth gaunt hands, 
Implored his wayward countrymen to pause. 
They heeded not, but, answering with jeers, 
Plunged into battle, proud and arrogant, 
Full of the overconfidence which breeds 
The seeds of its undoing. 

Through the stress, 
The awful murderous stress, of those four years, 
America had agonized, and care 
Had writ deep lines on Lincoln's homely face. 

i8s 



The maddened South had driven deep its crime 
Into its own torn entrails, and to-day 
Stood, Hke a desolated temple, reft 
Of all that once was beauty. 

From the throng 
Now burst a mighty cheer; from throats grown dry 
With fever came the faint pathetic note 
Of those whom weeks in crowded hospitals 
Had left but wrecks of men. 

On crutches came 
Hundreds of soldiers, maimed, to serve the cause 
And fight the fight of freedom; and anon 
An eager light stole piteously athwart 
The faded eyes of men who soon must die 
Of dread disease of camp and swampy field, 
Who yet would die the happier to have seen 
The saviour of his country. 

Lifting up 
His face, whereon emotion lambent played, 
Lincoln made sign for silence, and his lips 
Uttered the message that was half a prayer. 
He showed the purposes which rashly led 

i86 



The insurgents into action; how at first 

The government sought but to set due bounds 

To slavery's extension, — ^not at all 

To banish it; how, by their own mad act. 

The people of the South had forced the end 

Of slavery forever. 

"Ah!" he cried, 
"The Almighty's purposes are all His own. 
Woe to the world because offences come. 
Offences needs must come, but woe to him 
By whom the wrong is wrought. Shall we suppose 
That slavery, which haply needs must come. 
Hath brought the woe of war to North and South? 
Fondly we hope, as fervently we pray, 
That this grim scourge of war may pass away; 
Yet if God wills that it continue till 
The wealth piled up by all the centuries 
Of unrequited labor shall be sunk, — 
Till every drop of blood drawn by the lash 
Shall be repaid by one drawn by the sword, — 
So still it must be said, as 'twas of yore, 
The judgments of the Lord are ever true 
And righteous altogether." 

187 



Then in tears, 
Vibrant with all the passion of a seer: 
"With malice," spoke the prophet, "towards none; 
With charity for all; with firmness in 
The right, as God gives us to see the right. 
Let us complete the work that we are in." 
When he had ended, the upswelling cheer 
That rose, fell off to silence, checked by awe 
Too deep for human bearing; and adown 
The gusty colonnades and broad arcades 
Of the vast capitol, an echo rang 
Heard yet to-day: "With charity for all." 



IV 



Yea, and the time made bitter call for all 
The strength of human wills, to keep the faith 
With scorned humanity's most stern commands. 
From Libby Prison came the rending cry 
Of Union soldiers, scourged to tasks, and galled 
With chains more bitter than the clutch of death. 
The outraged face of Mercy turned away 
From all the horrors of Fort Pillow; while 

i88 



At Andersonville carnival went on 

To please the bloody fancies of a fiend. 

Then in the Senate rose the sturdy Wade, 

Demanding that retaliation be 

Forthwith resorted to. But Sumner's voice 

Was firm for righteousness. And Lincoln spoke, 

Out of his human heart, those words of gold: 

"I cannot starve and murder men, though all 

The malice of our foes should goad us on. 

Two wrongs have never made a right, and we 

Must follow conscience even to the end." 

Now, as the glimmerings of coming peace 
Greatened to dawn, the mind of Lincoln dwelt 
On reconstruction of the edifice 
So rudely shocked by war. The Union stood, 
Yet from a smoking, desolated South 
Came glimpses but of ruin. Every State 
Still in rebellion must be organized 
Under a new and loyal government. 
Obedience first, then restoration to 
The rights of citizenship, and once again 

189 



Admission to the councils of the land. 

The mighty task which now a mighty mind 

Essayed to carry to completion, was 

The rearing of the torn Republic's fane, 

The restoration of a temple fair 

In all its pristine beauty. 

Yet once more 
There came the call to battle. Lee was camped 
Beside the Appomattox, while there drew 
An ever closing circle of blue ranks, 
Upon whose banners victory sat to cheer 
Each loyal soul to action. Grant was there, 
Silent and confident, his veterans 
Eager to make an ending of the foe. 
Sherman, whose lines of eighty thousand men 
Sought but to form the junction which should force 
All opposition down, watched eagerly 
The coming of the end; while Sheridan, 
Earnest, alert and rapid, marched to seize 
Lee's only avenue of exit. Thus 
A fustian Confederacy was brought 
To its last gasp of life. Lee, ever brave, 

190 



Held out, but warned his chief that Petersburg 
And Richmond too must fall. 

Then Davis fled, 
A pitiable object, symbol fit 
Of treason decked in fear's habiliments; 
And at the dawning of another day 
The Union cavalry possession took 
Of Richmond, and upon the state-house raised 
Once more the old flag, — the unsullied stars 
And waving stripes of freedom. 

But for Grant 
A greater goal lured onward. Then and there 
He vowed to "end the matter." Pushing on 
Up one side of the Appomattox, Ord, 
Leading the valiant army of the James; 
Grant on the other, and with Sheridan 
Scouring the ground in front, no hope was left 
For the intrepid Lee. Through weary years 
He had endured the grinding strains of war, 
And in a cause unrighteous ever held 
The path of righteous action. Now he saw 
The inevitable end, and, stung to tears, 

191 



Bore manly sorrows with a dignity 

Befitting manhood in its best estate. 

Yielding to Grant his sword, he bore away 

The fragrance of a character unstained, 

The while his conqueror, large-hearted, broad, 

Gave generous terms, exacting naught that held 

The savor of dishonor. 

So the sun 
Which shone on Appomattox, lit the fires 
Of patriot exultation, for all knew 
Rebellion died upon that April day, 
And once again the Union was supreme. 
Meanwhile, the patient Lincoln, lifting eyes 
Of thankfulness to that Almighty power 
Whose presence was his bulwark, came to tread 
The dreary streets of Richmond, looking long 
Upon the walls of Libby and the marks 
Of desolation and the finger-prints 
Of bloody-handed war. 

The negroes flocked 
To see him, hear him speak, haply to touch 
His garments who, like a Messiah, came, 

192 



Bringing deliverance and the gift of life; 
Kissing the hand whose act had set them free, 
Blessing the saviour whose redemption brought 
The life of liberty to souls long crushed 
Beneath the weight of serfdom. 

Through the North, — 
The iron-willed, indomitable North, — 
Ran the electric joy, the deep content 
That comes of great accomplishment. 

The land 
Once more was liberty's, once more was free 
And dedicate to justice. From the South 
The sound of crumbling armies, like a dirge, 
Came fitful on the balmy winds of Spring; 
And echoes of dire desolation died 
Amid the anthem chords of victory. 



V 



Ring out, ye bells! 
From factory, tower and steeple. 
Ye bells that call to daily toil 

193 



The thews and sinews of a mighty people; 
Ye bells whose long, reverberant echo swells 
Through lattices where moss and ivy coil 
Cool fingers mid the stones; 
Ye bells that utter the muezzin call 
Translated to the language of the Christ; 

Ring out in ecstasy to one and all 
Peace, whose soft touch forever hath sufficed 
To silence sorrow's moans. 

Oh! Mother-Land, how agonized have been 
The torture and the travail of thy days! 
What hideous sights thine outraged eyes have seen! 
What blood hath smeared the verdure of thy bays! 
And 'mid thy laurel the commingled rue 
Hath spread the gloom of a funereal shade, 
Till thou, whose lips were fashioned to command, 
Hast, of thy mother-love, been forced to sue, 
Lest thine infuriate children, undismayed. 
Should drench a sorrowing land 

With one another's blood. How from thy view 
Have patriots passed to judgment! How 

194 



Have they held high their colors and gone down 
In glorious pageantry of mailed death! 
Alas! that for the crime of slavery thou 
Shouldst be condemned to wear a martyr's crown, 
Listening with bated breath 
To the long roll-call of thy martial dead! 
Yet is the end accomplished. Even now, 
'Mid the low requiem of thy muffled drums, 

A deep exultant cry. 
Born on the rounded lips of Victory, comes, — 
Life's music woven through a threnody, 
Like an immortal joy! 
War is a spectre fled; 
Rebellion, as a dragon in the throes 

Of a last agony, through all the South 
Lashes the dust of desolation's woes. 
And from its fetid mouth 
Spits forth the poison fated to destroy 
Itself in its own infamy. 
At Appomattox the strong hand of Grant 
Crushed out the life of treason. Gallant Lee 
Surrendered with his legions the last plea 
195 



For human bondage and the right of States 
To sovereignty supreme. Now at the gates 
Of a free Nation's capital we plant, 
Unsullied still, the free flag of the people. 

So ring out, ye bells! 
From factory, tower and steeple 

The victory whose echo proudly swells; 

And, as the dissonant war-cries slowly cease. 
Far over suncapped hills and greening dells 
Fling forth your word of peace. 



Yet toll, ye bells! 
Down all the arches of the lonesome sky 

Pour forth the message of a murdered joy! 
And even as the victor's song foretells 

Peace that nor hate nor malice may destroy. 
Weave through the cadence, as it upward swells, 
The echo of a long heart-broken sigh 

Wrung from an anguished people. 
Toll, ye bells, from factory, tower and steeple. 
In tones made eloquent of garnered woe, 

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Divinely fashioned by the hand of Grief, 
Utter the sadness which they only know 

Whose every flower is plucked from sorrow's sheaf; 
For he is dead who loved his country so, — 

Our leader and our chief! 

With new light dawning in his saddened eyes, 

With new joy in his ever steadfast soul, 
Lincoln the patriot saw at last the prize 
Gleam with the glory of a patriot's goal. 
And even in that moment crafty death 

Stole on him in a murderous madman's guise, 
And he who saved a Nation, in a breath 
Was one with God's immensities. 
Ah, Fate inscrutable! Was there no life 

Other than his to yield itself to thee? 
Was there no other heart to still its strife 
And end its being at thy stern decree? 

Dear God! That he who bore a people's woes, — 
A man of sorrows bending 'neath his cross, — 
Should, at the moment of his blest release 

From the deep anguish which a patriot knows 

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In presence of his bleeding country's loss, 
Meet death's dark midnight at the dawn of peace, — 
Endure the thorns amid the bitter dross. 
Yet miss at last the rapture of the rose. 

Then toll, sad bells! 
In falling minor tones o'er sun-kissed fields. 
In dying strains far over dreamy hills, 
Through all the pulsing life of cities, bent 
Upon the rich rewards which effort yields, 

O'er trodden street and meadow flower besprent, 
Sound the despair which, like a requiem, stills 
The song of exultation, and dispels 
The flush that victory lent. 

Toll, solemn bells! 
Through dim evanished years 

We seem to catch the echo of your tones. 

And standing where no note of discord mars 
The melody of life, to hear the moans, — 
The piteous drip of tears, — 

Preluding Victory's psean, which foretells 
Immortal music sung among the stars. 



